General DiscussionBeen watching so many SF Players, I want to learn the hero

a foolproof build would be this pt>meka>bkb>dagger>skadi>satanic/butterfly/ac/daedalus depending what u need (survivability, armor, attackspeed, more damage)
you are tanky enough from bkb and mek, you have a great heal for teamfights and you can chose when to fight with dagger.

you just bkb and jump on the enemy and ultimate (mb some follow up stuns) and its a won teamfight.

if things are going good in ur lane, you can rush a sb and use the surprise factor to snowball.

the euls build requires too much skill in order to be the most optimal build.

idk mb ill add somethign later

watch mushi item progression (linkens coz of grip and roar)

well this is actually a bad game to watch

lol...

I consider EUL build is classic. It started in Dota 1. For pub, go tread then blink/shadow blade depending on your playstyle, then BKB and whatever late items you feel that can win the game. Mek is really "competitive build" Because current meta is more into early fighting and pushing. Mid is the fastest to get mek ( at 13 minutes mark), also to share the burden with position 4,5. They can have urn / medalion => better teamfight in early and mid pharse.

If you watch competitive games, learn how they position themselves in team fight. There's no harm to copy their build but you need to understand why? the reason for each items they going. The items order. Watch how they make decisions in each situation? Their farm pattern. How they get back to the game if they are behind.

Mek isn't the best unless you see your team willingly fights with you when you ask them, requires too much mana and you need 2 arcanes, minimum one to support the usage of mek. Going mek>blink>bkb, while it keeps you tanky, gives you almost no dmg and attack speed to let you take over the game. Ofc in higher mmrs that's fine cause your teams gonna fight early with you. But imo the best way to play pub sf is like a slark, aquila>pt>shadowblade>sny>whatever you want. SB plus sfs ridiculous right clicks will tear anything apart at the 13 min mark. You can essentially just murder anything you see and then farm the enemy jung, bottle/base, repeat and boom you're taking their t3s.

The best way is just spam the hero you want to learn. If you looked at my match history, I spammed Earth Shaker in 21 games straight in 1 week. And to be honest, I feel like I only learn 10% of that hero's potential.

rush MoM and solo rosh at lvl 7, EZ game.

kappa

sb+deso in mmr like yours or mine will rip through everything, given that your positioning and awareness good.

but dont take my word for it i miss my q raze on creeps

Everyone's trying to learn Shadow Fiend, he's the new in thing, if you can't play no Shadow Fiend, then quit life loser! Kappa
But seriously, everyone is trying to learn him, never more better!

you have a lifetime of lessons to learn, and the one and only way to start learning, is to play yourself and screw everyone else

try my build

Itembuild depend's on your game.

says a smurf that can't even win consistenly in a low bracket

mek is fuckin ggarbage in pubs on sf

unless ur stacking and know wtf r u doing

In my opinion, most people tend to misunderstand why euls is so effective on SF.

The main benefit to having a euls is the very cost efficient mana regeneration and movement speed it provides. Between fighting and taking objectives you are in a much better position to farm jungle camps with razes and you can quickly move around and push out nearby lanes with your excess mana pool.

The euls combo gives you maximum style points but its not what makes the item so good for shadow fiend, its more of a bonus feature.

Gonna try SF in a pub now

Since I'm most likely mid, do i go wraith band tangoes (no one pools tangoes at my tier), or get all the parts of wraith minus recipe to get a couple branches for early game?

wb tango.

if u are lucky and do get the extra 140 or so gold from pool tangoes, u should ehter get salve or branch depending on their mid

the items dont even really matter as long as you play well
and honestly I agree with vaikiss mek sucks on pubs, either go for euls, sny, lothars or straight blink

So I'm trying wb tango start.

Quick Aquila or bottle, and then the other one. Treads, then SB, and then build gets kinda open, if stomping the deso sounds good, otherwise sny to get tanky, then bkb

Any suggestions?

i don't think that deso sf is a good idea
it's extremely risky, you have to stomp really hard because you can't get lifesteal later on which is usually needed later on

Well that went predictably

http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/1670884902

I have nothing to say about this game, I played decent at mid, had around 44 cs by 10 minute mark, and with denies had a pretty even lane.

I'd let the game score tell the details :/

TL;DR : Another hero I can't impact games with

this might be a shock to you but 44 cs by 10 minute as SF is fucking terrible

With 3 people at mid on their team and me alone at mid?

yeah you can have 100+ by min 10, but you need to stack yourself the camp(s) or ask a support to do it (in lower mmr they probably won't or just don't know how to stack tho).

your cs comes from woods not that much from lane

you need the arcana first

then you learn how to play the hero

Well considering our shadow demon roamed with courier for first 5 minutes with courier in his items instead of dropped, I doubt he'd have stacked.

and we had an LC jungler so I didn't have jungle to use

i have the arcana, that would explain my 9k mmr skills on sf

its normal skill bracket, people have no idea how to properly gank or zone, you should be able to just kill whoever comes to your lane honestly

in only 3 games i have 24 long raze kills, must be gut

It was a lina spirit doom gank on me, I got lina, but sb killed me.

I had no jungle to farm, I got the only two towers my team got (as you can see from TD)

yeah in lower mmr people underestimate the power of razes too, qops will often blink on you and if you run, you die but if you raze him 2 times , he has to run and you raze him 3rd time = ded

Legion had midas 11 minutes, then spent all game with just midas and deso recipe . Got the hammer when our 2nd rax dropped.

best advice = push out the lane with razes and go stack the hard camp (and mb medium camp with raze).
when you have your razes maxed or at least lvl 3 you can go get a 3-4 stack and get a huge gold and xp boost.

@777 : Thats how I got lina, connected with small and medium raze, and she died to turret hit. But bashlord killed me.

they had 3 shadow blades and I had the only dusts on team. Maybe mek would've helped more this game seeing how quickly everyone dropped

Oh yeah I stacked the radiant camp closest to cliff ward and legion q'd it down :S

Overall game was infuriating

try to play sf when there are no junglers or at least people with common sense that wont farm your stack

cuz its really what he does best

your attitude doesnt help it either
you're all like 'i was ganked, we had a stupid LC jungle, i was the only one with dusts'

who cares bro its NORMAL SKILL BRACKET, if you play decently you win 1v5, you just need to understand that, you lost your lane because you didnt play well, you should stay back when SB is missing since you're a fucking SF, you should have won the lane because lina probably had 3k mmr max etc

honestly, I think ill play the hero when I'm playing solo MM, coz when I play with friends they wont listen to what i say because "they just play for fun" they think i'm way too intense coz i'm trying to improve and they dont realise that 2.1k is not a good mmr to stick on.

You don't realise im not 5k, im not even close, I'm trying to improve, I'm close to my actual skill lvl rn so I can't win 1v5. If I could win 1v5 I wouldn't be at my tier.

of coure I realize that but if you keep blaming your trash teammates you wont improve
they are normal skill so they are gonna be trash, thats not surprising and you should expect it, and hey the other team is in the same level

Makes sense.

I'll watch the replay and see what I could've done better.

However at the same time, a game gets infinitely easier with competent teammates, or even bad teammates if we play to our strengths , neither of which happened this game.

Do you mind if I add you so I can watch a couple of your SF replays? You do have a 72% winrate on him

keep tryiong to find excuses and you will be there forever (NORMAL SKILL)

stffu and take the advices you scrub

I just played a game on my smurf, instapicked SF

http://www.dotabuff.com/players/196348993

My teammates were horrendous (look at that AM seriously) but the other team was even worse, it's unranked so the level isnt good but even so these players are probably way above your mmr. I missed some pretty easy razes (one mistake cost me 1 death) and misplayed on my 2nd death (didnt get the perfect requiem, I could maybe kill all of them before dying) but overall played decently

In low level games like these I like to play very agressively because I know I'm probably gonna wreck, I didnt bother stacking anything

"I'm close to my actual skill lvl rn so I can't win 1v5."
thats why you listen to this advice that'll help you learn to win 1v5 instead of making shitty excuses to why you lost.