Semi-daily hero tips. Day 80: Silencer

DISCLAIMER

A lot of you probably know about the weekly hero discussion, but that often ends up in a meta discussion (whether or not the hero needs buffs, etc) or a meme war than actual tips to play, itemize and build the hero.

This is what I'd like to do. Please discuss any notes I made and possible improvements while also giving tips of your own if you have them.

The roles, skill builds and item builds, as well as a lot of the notes are my opinion on matters and should not be seen as a must do or don't. Also remember that almost every single build or role is situationally possible.

A lot of the tips on heroes were also mentioned in tsunami's amazing hero tips series he did over the last couple of years.

Silencer

Notes:

• 6.79: Intelligence Steal is an innate part of the hero rather than an element of Glaives of Wisdom.
• Last word is good to cast on any hero at all
• You usually want to ult when the fight has been initiated on one end or another. Once there is no turning back from the fight (BKB's are turned on)
• Activiting BKB purges the global silence, but you can global silence once the BKB's are on.
• Last word no longer disarms the target if the timer expires (6.84).
• Versus: Avoid trading kills against silencer
• Friends: Storm + LS, Clock, Balanar, Wisp + other (silence ensures the kill when ganking)
• Puck can fully dodge last word damage and silence by phase shifting and not cancelling the spell
• Good versus: Phoenix (last word makes phoenix unable to stop his dive or use fire spirits), Enigma (cast global after black hole starts), Bristle, Timber, OD, Necro, Zeus, Jakiro (Full arsenal), Ember (global)
• Counters: Lycan, IO (doesn't care about anything silencer casts after he got ult off), LD, Abaddon, Viper (doesn't care about anything silencer casts)
• Using last word after curse runs out or the other way around is optimal, but it does lessen your burst damage.
• Versus: Remember ultimate cooldown 2'10
• Versus: Get eul's/lotus orb/manta/BKB/Greaves to purge off global silence. (/u/Marconidas)

Role: support (, mid, semi-carry)

Item build: (Null, Midas) wand, Treads, (Mek/drum/)force staff (--> pike, sheep stick, Silver Edge, Linken's, BKB, Rod of Atos, Bloodthorn)

Skill build: lvl 1 glaives, max curse --> last word --> glaives

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