Night Stalker Surfaces As The Top Pick Of The Meta
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It’s rare in Dota for heroes to get new abilities outside of total reworks or an Aghanim Scepter upgrade. That was the case with Night Stalker in patch 7.06, when he got a buff to Hunter in the Night that allowed him to briefly fly. But can it really be called flying if you’re only soaring for two seconds?
A small change in Dota can have a butterfly effect. Minute, decimal point tweaks to base attack speed, turn rates, or stat gain have been able to vault heroes in and out of the meta.
In Epicenter Moscow, Night Stalker rose to first round pick/ban material, and he’s currently the 5th most picked and banned, with a 58.3% win rate when he’s been let through the draft. The hero has been deadly in the hands of team LGD.Forever Young, who is currently 3-0 with him, which includes a 2-0 dominating sweep over team OG.
Night Stalker’s wings now are more than just cosmetic. The change to Hunter in the Night, compounded with global buffs to Strength heroes and a meta shifting towards a dynamic early and mid game, has made Night Stalker one of the top picks in the current meta.
The Death Of Aghanim’s Scepter
Aghanim’s Scepter was always a must purchase for Night Stalker. While it was an expensive purchase, especially for a 4 position Night Stalker, the impact it has was always worth the wait. It was a great "win more" item, but also a great way to get back into the game by securing additional map control.
With the new active for Hunter in the Night, the item is now most likely obsolete. While it doesn’t offer the same vision range and constant sight, wily players are able to find the right opportunities to make the most of the active’s 14 second cool down (at level 4). The active is sufficient, such that the upgrade from Aghanim’s Scepter isn’t worth the 4200 gold and the period of vulnerability it takes to build towards it.
LGD.Forever Young’s Night Stalker dominated with a 8/0/21 end score, a net worth greater than OG’s Terrorblade, and an inventory absent of Scepter. iG.Boboka built towards a similar aura carrying support, with Vladmir’s Offering and Assault Cuirass, in another dominating match against Clutch Gamers.
An aura carrying offlaner that isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but one that eschews Aghanim’s Scepter is a fairly new development for Night Stalker—even looking at something as recent as the Kiev Major we can find that Aghanim’s Scepter was part of the core build in every NS game.
The Right Builds
Pub strategy tends to lag behind pro strategy. It’s not a surprise that pub players opt for the fighting abilities, with nearly 80% choosing attack speed over mana, even if overall it results in a -2.8% hit in win rate. Pub and pro players differ the most in the choices of the first two ability builds, where players have to choose between spell casting buffs (+cast range, +mana) or strength (+7) and attack speed (+25AS).
To this day, more than half of pub players still use Night Stalker as an offlaner. And in just this past month, they’ve built Abyssal Blade more often than Assault Cuirass, Vladmir’s Offering, and Heaven’s Halberd—the usual staples in the item builds of pro players.
During Epicenter, pro players have been using Night Stalker in a dynamic support role, favoring cast range and mana as their early ability builds. The takeaway is that Night Stalker is still an effective fighter without needing that extra attack speed and strength. His early builds often involves strength items like Urn or a Bracer building towards Drum of Endurance. What he lacks is Mana, which is now even more strained with his new active.
Night Stalker’s peak potential is in the early to mid game. It's difficult to bully Night Stalker out of the lane with his high base HP and armor. In most cases, he trades favorably against other supports, without spending a lot of mana. He does have an avenue to be a capable, physical damage dealer, but planning for that in the early game, by taking his fighting abilities, or building towards carry items would be missing why he’s become such a threat in today’s meta.
All eyes will be on these final round of tournaments leading up to TI7. While these events can be a period of experimentation for new strategies, it's still a crucial time for teams who are still fighting for a limited number of coveted invites.
wow
so cool
1rst:D
[A] you are the second XD ... n the hunter of the night is back again Lolz XD
BALANAR GO GO GO
Batman
Теперь это русские комментарии.
Кстати, заметили что у баланара на лбу головка члена?
I think his standard build sucks. His aghs is overrated. I think he should be built more DPS oriented. A mix of Ursa, Troll, PA and SB build is good I guess for a core. I know pros don't agree with DPS oriented build, because as an offlaner he should be a stunner tank and as a support a teamfight utility provider, but ok.
"Aghs is overrated"
Said the sub 50 wr guy who gave up already in dota then decide to play bot whre he can enjoy his low skill
Aghs is still OP, there is no hiding for any hero if Balanar is chasing you. I favor the casting build and getting items that ensure survivability.
I'm Batman
Seeing as the hero has been used as a support for over a year in pros, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that building support items (which are necessary to the team) is effective. That slow and silence is already really awesome, and it won't get better by building tank or damage items. I'm kind of surprised aether isn't on his popular item list for pros, even if it only effects one spell.
*dies to PL*
BATMAN
The hero really lack damage for the late game, that's why he isn't build with DPS items. However, he's a strong tank with really good CC.
Understand why cause of that https://www.dotabuff.com/players/432125488 Check Night Stalker's stats
как развидеть красный член на шлеме у НСа?
Building aghs on Night Stalker now is as bad as building it on Treant Protector. People think, not buying wards or having any vision on the map in the first 30 minutes, rushing midas and afk farming as a position 4 support gives you 'amazing' late game vision that 'wins games'. There's a reason you see Treant so much in pro games, but never a scepter. The same has happened to Night Stalker now. However, this is not going to change people's builds in low skill level games (my skill leve).
aghs now become an optional item, only work when you're dealing with tinker , aside from that is literally waste of money
* Night Stalker: Hunter in the Night manacost increased from 50 to 80
* Night Stalker: Void day slow duration reduced from 2 to 1.25 seconds
ty GabeN
@Carmilla you can just shutup. I often play with teams full of 3ks and 4ks and here is one https://www.dotabuff.com/matches/3199693901 . I didn't gave up on anything, I just don't like pubs, because of toxic people like you. I'm a bot spammer because I find it more fun. I know you're a mean baby with no life and no critical reasoning, instead of criticizing my point, you ran an ad hominem.
There's no "tank" role in dota 2, you nitwits. NS is good as pos 3-4, which offers utility and some kill potential. The fact that he can provide absurd amount of vision mid-late game is extremely powerful, arguably borderline broken.
HAHA nerfed
CN dota best dota ! ti7 conme on
中国军团带你飞！
Balanar=BATMAN('_')
Is Night Stalker mid still viable? It seems like he can wreck house against many matchups, then gank and snowball. At the same time though, waste of the extra creep mid. I got rekt by a Balanar mid the other week as SF.
ЩЕ НЕ ВМЕРЛА УКРАЇНА
building an ags in that game would've been overkill. NS doesn't need many items to be effective anyway. also OG got majorly outdrafted that game no question. the feed early game was real!
Can you make an "Epicenter: Moscow meta heroes review" please? :3
Agha's problem in pubs is that teams don't work well enough to utilize it effectively and in pros it's because they work well enough that Balanar's early advantage is already enough to decide games. (aka it ends before he gets it. or they get item that focus on maximizing his early advantages. )
As a DPS hero he's really garbage, the only plausibly good build would involve Mjollnir + tank items.
The difference between Balanar and Treant is that if skills are roughly equal Balanar should earn a lot more money through ganks and fights usually. if your poor as F by mid game as Balanar your screwed no matter what anyway. with Treant it's more tricky because he's not really an active ganker or anything.
While your all doing that I'm taking him mid, getting aghs > aether lens > dagon >ethreal blade octorine if the game isn't over yet. I mean I got to do it on someone.... why not one of the fastest and tankier heros in the game with unobstructed vision?