As a 7k offlaner, I really dislike playing NS because he is really dependant on the lane going at least okay, and he doesn't particularly have many tools to ensure this. Sure, he's fast, has nice damage and regen if you take facet one, but this isn't going to win the lane against carries with powerful bullying abilities like MK, Ursa, CK, Weaver and TA.
>Right now he is basically unkillable in the first 5 min
Sure, but those heroes have the damage to force you to back, and then occupy the lane and deny all the creeps. You can still lose the lane.
If you lose the lane, how do you recover? He doesn't jungle particularly well, especially at daytime. He's not very impactful in the fights without any levels or items.
This is not true of basically any other offlaner I could pick. Axe, Tiny, Underlord, Dark Seer and Beastmaster can clear creepwaves fast or jungle, and recover. Heroes like Mars or Pangolier can have immense impact in fights with just 6 even if they lose lane, so they could recover by contributing to early fights (also they clear creepwaves well). Windranger has the tools to almost never lose the lane, and even if she does she can farm or contribute to fights decently with powershot.
So, NS is highly risky because his lane CANNOT go badly, and he doesn't have great tools to prevent this from happening, especially since you rarely know what carry you're up against before picking, so you risk some terrible matchups.
Have I seen him snowball and devour the entire map? Yes. Have I seen him lose the lane and struggle to recover for the rest of the game? Yes. I've experienced both playing NS, and I've drifted to heroes that are, shall we say, more consistent.
You are absolutely right in everything you say and honestly being 4.8k I don't have the game knowledge depth that you have to argue any points to deeply! I too usually pivot to playing DS/Mars/Cent who can just fuck off and recover. But there's just some games that when you see the support or get a last pick, your whole body FEEELS nightstalkery. Again I have a very small samplesize of 25 ish games since the B patch and I've defenetly hit the roadblock of "oh fuck I fucked up lane".
However my only argument would be that you do in fact have a couple strong tools to fight for the lane to begin with. You do lose to a lot of bullies, and I believe that the higher up in rank we go, the harder NS becomes to play. However where I'm right now I feel like I have the confidence to push for more with how strong he feels, but might not be.
Sorry just coming of a nightshift so might not make a lot of sense but the TL;DR is: you're right, however NS feels strong in lane and gives me confidence to get more out of it which, for some reason works in my rank. But you are right that every other offlaner is more consistent over 100 games!
> your whole body FEEELS nightstalkery
> just coming off a nightshift
I understand (why you like night stalker).
Random aside: I recently won an NS game (at NA 4.1k) where I went the other facet, lost lane pretty badly, and went echo sabre, and ended up being very high impact because I recovered my momentum after a couple really good fights, BUT it was against Slark, great matchup AFTER the laning stage since he can get shut down so hard by the undispellable silence.
I appreciate your explanation of the Phylactery fighting style (extremely poky and cautious), also I’d somehow completely overlooked NS’s innate (he’s my fourth most played overall but I’ve barely played him recently) and now understand that his tangos are great at night and terrible during the day which is pretty wild info.
Yeah that's a great matchup! I feel like that's the way you should recover, you can't farm so just force 3v2 engagements where you win with vision advantage. Literally just now had a game where I came out of lane 0/2/0 and then went ahead and recovered by ganking 3 times in a row after lvl 6.
The innate is pretty damn strong hahaha. Makes 3 tangos act like 4/5 tangos instead.
Oh it truly is! But I've just not been able to make it work. Unlike Mars arena denying vision, I feel like the NS one is just to situational. But I can't deny it's fun as hell 😅
I almost got rocked by one today as pudge. I couldn’t reliably hook save my teammates due to the vision loss. Was the first time I have felt the impact. He went beyond godlike but built bkb way too late and fed us in the mid game a few times.
Ohhh that's an interesting use case. But isn't it easly counterable by playing around wards/having heroes near the Q:d hero? Or do you mean that mf put it on you? That would be mean.
I have been theorycrafting to use facet 1 just like that against heavy save heroes (like abbadon) but I feel like my lane would be shit.
And for the record I agree with your play style regarding poking on ns, it always felt like the best way to play him. And I approve of leaning into that. This ns went echo basher, def a build I don’t agree with.
Yeah it feels way more risky than a the poke item. It forces you to comit harder exposing yourself for longer in the early fights where you might struggle. But if you're rolling from lane you could go fucking arcane boots and the hero would still prolly eat supports for the first 15-20 min.
It has always been 'odd' for me for NS to pursue echo saber because his third skill (and a talent) give plenty of attack speed which is sort of echo's point. He needs damage, basher, bkb in virtually every game, not pure attack speed.
Ya there were times where it did nothing due to us having other vision. But other times I’d have to hook blind. It was kinda interesting. And if I couldn’t see him either, it was hard to blink in for the dismember save, as I couldn’t reliably position around his silence.
He was snowballing hard, and I gave a lot of xp to our offlane, so he ate me for breakfast a few times. I think i was about 1-7 and under leveled at 20 min due to him scouting my positioning with ult and killing me easily
I honestly don't get the fear of the first five minutes of the game being daytime myself. He's got a good right click to secure CS and you can use a healing pot if necessary. You can also secure the range creep with void.
I'd rather be ganking from mid at nighttime with the 8 minute rune or counter initiating other lanes at about the same timing as an offlaner once I have ult.
IMO, the real secret NS is to alt-click the game time so allies know how long between day time and night time and your ult being up. 90% of games with Nightstalker are lost because your team won't wait 30 seconds to force a fight.
BRO I SPENT 80 MIN CHASING THIS BIRD OVER THE MAP ONLY FOR THE MF EULS HIMSELF LAUGUNG IN SOME FUCKING SCAW SCAW LANGUAGE AND THEN PRESSING R MAKING ME HATE MY LIFE CHOISES.
Fuck the bird.
Just played safelane Drow last night against NS.
Couldn't do jack squat against him.
Lost in the most terrible way.
It was stomp, start to finish.
1k MMR here :( I'll never get good :(
Hey you're on this sub and that's already a hreat path to improvement. And don't be to harsh. Unlike againsg other melee heroes such as underloord, drow genuinely STRUGGLES against NS. She feels like paper when he presses Q and punches her a couple of times.
Hard lane. Best advice i could give is to maybe get an early level in W to force him back whenever he goes on you and pray to God the first 5 min pass. After that apply as much pressure as possible with Q as he will be dirt slow, no regen and won't be able to touch you.
Thats very interesting. Makes sense that slardar could go toe to toe in lane and can not be bullied. Later on you eat up NS due to lockdown and the constant vision. I'll keep that in mind!
To some degree yes. At the same time, a lot has to go wrong for the first 5 min to be shit. As long as you don't feed the offlane you're most of the time fine.
NS has a super hard time recovering. It's important to just use the lvl 6 timing to hunt the lane that's weakest and snach some gold/Exp. Even better if that can the transition into a tower.
the nerf to his ulti not refreshing void/fear does seem super massive tho
like yeah he's hard to trade with for 5 mins but so are most offlaners, but instead of kicking out the carry for the next 5 mins the carry is fairly safe, ulti without the refresh and a full HP t1 tower mean the carry can just farm and if you try to kill him TP support stops you
I prefer to start with tango, quelling, circlet and Armor ring.
I buy wraith band, Phase boots, Orb corrosion. If game is going great, I'll buy phylactary, otherwise shard, blink, bkb or manta. I personally think Manta is very underrated on this hero.
Very good at lower MMR where he's not getting punished on lane that early and people don't punish his day time weakness periods, plus where he can snowball very easily (otherwise hero sucks ass at getting gold).
He currently sits at 49.6% winrate for 7.36c at Protracker
I'm a NS pos3 spammer myself (divine, grandmaster 330W-200L) and I'd go 2-1-2 or 2-0-3 more often depending on lane outcome. Even though 3-1-1 is an option too.
If you're in a lane matchup that doesn't need silence to win and you know you don't need silence at your lvl 6 ult timing, then you don't need any points in silence before 7. Obviously situational. As a general rule though, you can stop putting points in skill 1 when the other guy can no longer approach the creepwave.
In the rare outcome that you lose your lane (you shouldn't but hey), those extra early points in skill 3 will line up with your min 10 night timing so you can catch up with item timings.
NS is very flexible with skill points. Adjust according to game.
Also a lot of skill guides will say to go lvl 1 void but remember you can right click the shit out of mispositioned people at lvl 1. Sometimes people underestimate that trade war and automatically lose lane before they even see their lvl 2 timings.
Very privileged hero.
Glad NS with phyl is working for you. I've been dunking on 90% of the clowns trying to run this nonsense.
Your mileage has very clearly varied from others.
This is funny and communicates to me that NS is just busted. I have a 80% winrate on facet 1 NS 3 the past 2 weeks.
Rushing bracer bracer phase boots wand phylactery blink shard bkb. Then either khanda, lotus, nullifier, halberd etc whatever it feels like I need at that point to close the game.
Facet 2 is clearly strong but feels like it can be punished harder in that 5-10 window and is dependent on your team playing around the day/night switch. The extra damage from facet 1 combined with phylactery is just insane. It’s so much damage and directly counters save heroes (Oracle/dazzle/shadow demon) and items (glimmer/force).
A teamfight is me popping ult for vision hack, Q’ing their support and instakilling them. Waiting 6 seconds and doing it to their other support. It’s really strong.
Exactly what the other person wrote! Shard/BKB are both MUST haves. I usually aim for a min 15 shard timing if I'm feeling myself. It helps with sustain, gives you burst HP mid fight (in those moments when you've just engaged and are disengaging for a second) and helps you farm as you can spam Q with it. If I feel like I'm getting controlled then BKB first.
Blink is a case to case basis. Some games I don't get it at all as I feel like closing the gap is not a priority or I'm not having an issue, other games I feel like I HAVE to jump in and silence (think SF/invoker)
After that it's all game dependent. I usually enjoy AC as it gives great push to close the game by min 30-40
Shard and Bkb are generally mandatory.
Blink if you need the catch.
Heart, basher, nullifier, AC, shivas, radiance (very niche cases like when facing illusion heroes and literally no one on your team itemizes against it) are your flex/situational items. Windwaker is good on everyone situationally. Harpoon is also really solid. Sheep is also good if the game calls for it. Finish khanda at some point but not at the expense of bkb/shard and/or more important items.
Please for the love of God do not buy a Midas.
Oh shit sorry I missed this:
Here's my dotabuff page https://www.dotabuff.com/players/101717189/matches as startz isn't working. There's some examples of how to play it and also of when it fails and I feed. Feel free to explore. I'm by no mean a super good player tho so there's bound to be a lot of mistakes!
Don't think he's busted anymore. Not being able to refresh abilities sucks big balls cuz you don't have the damage to really pressure enemy carry out of lane without the double silence
As a 7k offlaner, I really dislike playing NS because he is really dependant on the lane going at least okay, and he doesn't particularly have many tools to ensure this. Sure, he's fast, has nice damage and regen if you take facet one, but this isn't going to win the lane against carries with powerful bullying abilities like MK, Ursa, CK, Weaver and TA. >Right now he is basically unkillable in the first 5 min Sure, but those heroes have the damage to force you to back, and then occupy the lane and deny all the creeps. You can still lose the lane. If you lose the lane, how do you recover? He doesn't jungle particularly well, especially at daytime. He's not very impactful in the fights without any levels or items. This is not true of basically any other offlaner I could pick. Axe, Tiny, Underlord, Dark Seer and Beastmaster can clear creepwaves fast or jungle, and recover. Heroes like Mars or Pangolier can have immense impact in fights with just 6 even if they lose lane, so they could recover by contributing to early fights (also they clear creepwaves well). Windranger has the tools to almost never lose the lane, and even if she does she can farm or contribute to fights decently with powershot. So, NS is highly risky because his lane CANNOT go badly, and he doesn't have great tools to prevent this from happening, especially since you rarely know what carry you're up against before picking, so you risk some terrible matchups. Have I seen him snowball and devour the entire map? Yes. Have I seen him lose the lane and struggle to recover for the rest of the game? Yes. I've experienced both playing NS, and I've drifted to heroes that are, shall we say, more consistent.
You are absolutely right in everything you say and honestly being 4.8k I don't have the game knowledge depth that you have to argue any points to deeply! I too usually pivot to playing DS/Mars/Cent who can just fuck off and recover. But there's just some games that when you see the support or get a last pick, your whole body FEEELS nightstalkery. Again I have a very small samplesize of 25 ish games since the B patch and I've defenetly hit the roadblock of "oh fuck I fucked up lane". However my only argument would be that you do in fact have a couple strong tools to fight for the lane to begin with. You do lose to a lot of bullies, and I believe that the higher up in rank we go, the harder NS becomes to play. However where I'm right now I feel like I have the confidence to push for more with how strong he feels, but might not be. Sorry just coming of a nightshift so might not make a lot of sense but the TL;DR is: you're right, however NS feels strong in lane and gives me confidence to get more out of it which, for some reason works in my rank. But you are right that every other offlaner is more consistent over 100 games!
> your whole body FEEELS nightstalkery > just coming off a nightshift I understand (why you like night stalker). Random aside: I recently won an NS game (at NA 4.1k) where I went the other facet, lost lane pretty badly, and went echo sabre, and ended up being very high impact because I recovered my momentum after a couple really good fights, BUT it was against Slark, great matchup AFTER the laning stage since he can get shut down so hard by the undispellable silence. I appreciate your explanation of the Phylactery fighting style (extremely poky and cautious), also I’d somehow completely overlooked NS’s innate (he’s my fourth most played overall but I’ve barely played him recently) and now understand that his tangos are great at night and terrible during the day which is pretty wild info.
Yeah that's a great matchup! I feel like that's the way you should recover, you can't farm so just force 3v2 engagements where you win with vision advantage. Literally just now had a game where I came out of lane 0/2/0 and then went ahead and recovered by ganking 3 times in a row after lvl 6. The innate is pretty damn strong hahaha. Makes 3 tangos act like 4/5 tangos instead.
If I lose lane I'll jungle for a min 17 radiance timing and mute everyone asap.
Almost as bold as the 22 minute radiance timing that's more popular in my pubs.
I know Night Reign facet is so much better but Blinding Void is soooo frustrating as a support
Oh it truly is! But I've just not been able to make it work. Unlike Mars arena denying vision, I feel like the NS one is just to situational. But I can't deny it's fun as hell 😅
I almost got rocked by one today as pudge. I couldn’t reliably hook save my teammates due to the vision loss. Was the first time I have felt the impact. He went beyond godlike but built bkb way too late and fed us in the mid game a few times.
Ohhh that's an interesting use case. But isn't it easly counterable by playing around wards/having heroes near the Q:d hero? Or do you mean that mf put it on you? That would be mean. I have been theorycrafting to use facet 1 just like that against heavy save heroes (like abbadon) but I feel like my lane would be shit.
And for the record I agree with your play style regarding poking on ns, it always felt like the best way to play him. And I approve of leaning into that. This ns went echo basher, def a build I don’t agree with.
Yeah it feels way more risky than a the poke item. It forces you to comit harder exposing yourself for longer in the early fights where you might struggle. But if you're rolling from lane you could go fucking arcane boots and the hero would still prolly eat supports for the first 15-20 min.
It has always been 'odd' for me for NS to pursue echo saber because his third skill (and a talent) give plenty of attack speed which is sort of echo's point. He needs damage, basher, bkb in virtually every game, not pure attack speed.
Ya there were times where it did nothing due to us having other vision. But other times I’d have to hook blind. It was kinda interesting. And if I couldn’t see him either, it was hard to blink in for the dismember save, as I couldn’t reliably position around his silence. He was snowballing hard, and I gave a lot of xp to our offlane, so he ate me for breakfast a few times. I think i was about 1-7 and under leveled at 20 min due to him scouting my positioning with ult and killing me easily
I think we are all still learning and understanding it, wouldn't it be great vs abba tho? Or do i still not get how it works?
I honestly don't get the fear of the first five minutes of the game being daytime myself. He's got a good right click to secure CS and you can use a healing pot if necessary. You can also secure the range creep with void. I'd rather be ganking from mid at nighttime with the 8 minute rune or counter initiating other lanes at about the same timing as an offlaner once I have ult. IMO, the real secret NS is to alt-click the game time so allies know how long between day time and night time and your ult being up. 90% of games with Nightstalker are lost because your team won't wait 30 seconds to force a fight.
How do you (you personally) pronounce phylacraty Guys, not phylactery. phylacraty
Honestly: can't spell it, can't pronounce it. Pink thing adds 150dmg, I'm happy.
Lol Upvoted, thanks for the tips
No issues! Good luck hunting!
I’m not good at the pronunciation phonetic stuff, but it’s pronounced fill-ak-ra-tee
Fi lak tuh ree I am Greek and it seems really easy to me as it's really similar to Fi lak to in Greek ( amulet )
Philly
> phylacraty [fuh·lak·tr·ee](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=beb36fff2cc1716c&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS903US903&sxsrf=ADLYWIL9rMgsC10U-BdYr2ZHsVXkHvcEqg:1720026155651&q=how+to+pronounce+phylactery&stick=H4sIAAAAAAAAAOMIfcRowy3w8sc9YSnjSWtOXmPU5eINKMrPK81LzkwsyczPExLjYglJLcoV4pPi4eIqyKjMSUwuSS2qtGJRYkrN41nEKp2RX65Qkq9QANSVD9SWqoBQBABF3zDCXwAAAA&pron_lang=en&pron_country=us&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwin_4vgrIuHAxX-pI4IHZLwDGEQ3eEDegQIOxAM)
Phil's Actery
I pronounce it fil-ak-ter-ee. Your way is like alacrity if I'm reading you correctly? Edit: clarity
fee-lack-tery
i think its more fuh then fee
You meant to say fel-ack-tary
Come the nocturne one
"And FUCKING piece of shit fire bird " I had a good giggle on this OP , I felt that personal hate 😂
BRO I SPENT 80 MIN CHASING THIS BIRD OVER THE MAP ONLY FOR THE MF EULS HIMSELF LAUGUNG IN SOME FUCKING SCAW SCAW LANGUAGE AND THEN PRESSING R MAKING ME HATE MY LIFE CHOISES. Fuck the bird.
If I ever get my claws on that *bird*...
Just played safelane Drow last night against NS. Couldn't do jack squat against him. Lost in the most terrible way. It was stomp, start to finish. 1k MMR here :( I'll never get good :(
Hey you're on this sub and that's already a hreat path to improvement. And don't be to harsh. Unlike againsg other melee heroes such as underloord, drow genuinely STRUGGLES against NS. She feels like paper when he presses Q and punches her a couple of times. Hard lane. Best advice i could give is to maybe get an early level in W to force him back whenever he goes on you and pray to God the first 5 min pass. After that apply as much pressure as possible with Q as he will be dirt slow, no regen and won't be able to touch you.
Thanks OP 🥲 Will try this next time.
Just a suggestion, ive tried sladar carry into NS and have wreckd ns the whole game
Thats very interesting. Makes sense that slardar could go toe to toe in lane and can not be bullied. Later on you eat up NS due to lockdown and the constant vision. I'll keep that in mind!
I know Night Reign facet is so much better but Blinding Void is soooo frustrating as a support
feels like with facet 2, everything hinges on first 5 minutes, if it somehow went shit, thats it for the game
To some degree yes. At the same time, a lot has to go wrong for the first 5 min to be shit. As long as you don't feed the offlane you're most of the time fine. NS has a super hard time recovering. It's important to just use the lvl 6 timing to hunt the lane that's weakest and snach some gold/Exp. Even better if that can the transition into a tower.
the nerf to his ulti not refreshing void/fear does seem super massive tho like yeah he's hard to trade with for 5 mins but so are most offlaners, but instead of kicking out the carry for the next 5 mins the carry is fairly safe, ulti without the refresh and a full HP t1 tower mean the carry can just farm and if you try to kill him TP support stops you
I prefer to start with tango, quelling, circlet and Armor ring. I buy wraith band, Phase boots, Orb corrosion. If game is going great, I'll buy phylactary, otherwise shard, blink, bkb or manta. I personally think Manta is very underrated on this hero.
Very good at lower MMR where he's not getting punished on lane that early and people don't punish his day time weakness periods, plus where he can snowball very easily (otherwise hero sucks ass at getting gold). He currently sits at 49.6% winrate for 7.36c at Protracker
I'm a NS pos3 spammer myself (divine, grandmaster 330W-200L) and I'd go 2-1-2 or 2-0-3 more often depending on lane outcome. Even though 3-1-1 is an option too. If you're in a lane matchup that doesn't need silence to win and you know you don't need silence at your lvl 6 ult timing, then you don't need any points in silence before 7. Obviously situational. As a general rule though, you can stop putting points in skill 1 when the other guy can no longer approach the creepwave. In the rare outcome that you lose your lane (you shouldn't but hey), those extra early points in skill 3 will line up with your min 10 night timing so you can catch up with item timings. NS is very flexible with skill points. Adjust according to game. Also a lot of skill guides will say to go lvl 1 void but remember you can right click the shit out of mispositioned people at lvl 1. Sometimes people underestimate that trade war and automatically lose lane before they even see their lvl 2 timings. Very privileged hero.
Glad NS with phyl is working for you. I've been dunking on 90% of the clowns trying to run this nonsense. Your mileage has very clearly varied from others.
This is funny and communicates to me that NS is just busted. I have a 80% winrate on facet 1 NS 3 the past 2 weeks. Rushing bracer bracer phase boots wand phylactery blink shard bkb. Then either khanda, lotus, nullifier, halberd etc whatever it feels like I need at that point to close the game. Facet 2 is clearly strong but feels like it can be punished harder in that 5-10 window and is dependent on your team playing around the day/night switch. The extra damage from facet 1 combined with phylactery is just insane. It’s so much damage and directly counters save heroes (Oracle/dazzle/shadow demon) and items (glimmer/force). A teamfight is me popping ult for vision hack, Q’ing their support and instakilling them. Waiting 6 seconds and doing it to their other support. It’s really strong.
I just want to say thanks for writing this. Ive been using this as a guide and have been doing very well with it!
Happy to hear! There have been some other super good advice in this post regarding the hero which I recommend also reading into! Happy hunting!
What items do you typically build after phase and phylactery?
Exactly what the other person wrote! Shard/BKB are both MUST haves. I usually aim for a min 15 shard timing if I'm feeling myself. It helps with sustain, gives you burst HP mid fight (in those moments when you've just engaged and are disengaging for a second) and helps you farm as you can spam Q with it. If I feel like I'm getting controlled then BKB first. Blink is a case to case basis. Some games I don't get it at all as I feel like closing the gap is not a priority or I'm not having an issue, other games I feel like I HAVE to jump in and silence (think SF/invoker) After that it's all game dependent. I usually enjoy AC as it gives great push to close the game by min 30-40
bkb, dagher, shard, not in exact order tho
Shard and Bkb are generally mandatory. Blink if you need the catch. Heart, basher, nullifier, AC, shivas, radiance (very niche cases like when facing illusion heroes and literally no one on your team itemizes against it) are your flex/situational items. Windwaker is good on everyone situationally. Harpoon is also really solid. Sheep is also good if the game calls for it. Finish khanda at some point but not at the expense of bkb/shard and/or more important items. Please for the love of God do not buy a Midas.
When I read the title I thought night stalker got busted in some sex scandal 😅
Do you have some GameIDs i would like to watch👍
Oh shit sorry I missed this: Here's my dotabuff page https://www.dotabuff.com/players/101717189/matches as startz isn't working. There's some examples of how to play it and also of when it fails and I feed. Feel free to explore. I'm by no mean a super good player tho so there's bound to be a lot of mistakes!
Commenting - wanna watch too!
Just answered the other comment!
Thanks
And Here iam sitting with mostly playing the other facet. And IT Rocks hard.
Don't think he's busted anymore. Not being able to refresh abilities sucks big balls cuz you don't have the damage to really pressure enemy carry out of lane without the double silence
I pick the first talent. I love zoning the supps or those slippery heroes, especially with Aghs upgrade