Silencer
Here is a Hero that can silence entire stadiums of screaming fans. A fun trend that is going around in the larger LAN tournaments is when Silencer Dota 2 hits his Ultimate Ability “Global Silence” the casters go quiet the crowd goes still and everyone waits in hushed tones until it is over.
We are going to dive into Silencer Dota 2 and learn that the hero can both be a hard position 5 hero, or the number 1 in your team and in your hearts.
Skills
Arcane Curse
This skill has been patched and changed throughout the years to be almost an entirely different skill. It used to sap mana and deal damage. Now it just ticks damage and slows the enemy. The neat attribute about this skill is that it recasts itself for free on the enemy if they use an ability. This punishes heroes during team fights for using their own abilities to trying and win. This is Silencer’s first ability and usually you will want to max it first as both its damage and movement slow increase with each level. This will be useful both as a support and as a carry.
Glaives of Wisdom
This is Silencer Dota 2’s active attack modifier, meaning after it is skilled Silencer can choose to use it on each attack. This is important as each attack with Glaives costs mana and at an early level Silencer can run out of mana rather easily spamming this ability. How Glaives works is rather important. Glaives adds damage based on Silencer’s Intelligence. If Silencer has a lot of Intelligence then Glaives is dealing lots of damage each attack. If however Silencer has a poor amount of intelligence then Glaives is dealing little damage. This matters if Silencer is playing a support or core role. If support, one level in Glaives is sufficient until all other skills are maxed. If Silencer is a core, maxing this is wise, as Silencer will want to dish out as much right click damage as possible, and he will have the farm to have purchased items to increase his Intelligence.
Last Word
This is Silencer Dota 2’s nuke damage. It hits hard after its initial delay, and when it does hit the enemy is silenced, meaning they cannot use their abilities. The enemy may also choose to activate Last Word sooner by casting one of their abilities. If playing a core role, one point in Last Word is sufficient to gain the initial burst damage.
Global Silence
This is Silencer’s game changing ability. He can cast there from wherever he is and it will effect all the enemies on the map. All enemy heroes are then Silenced and unable to cast spells. They can purchase items that can remove this de-buff from them such as a Black King Bar (BKB) or Manta Style, yet both of these items are rather expensive to farm and until then Silencer is causing havoc in each team fight by allowing his team to cast their abilities and denying the enemy their wish to do so.
Global Silence if used right can even work against a hero carrying BKB. As the Silencer player you will have to wait to see if they have activated their BKB, once they have Global Silence will pierce through their defensive item and silence them.
Innate Ability
If Silencer Dota 2 is given a strong start and racks up a good amount of kills or assists he can completely devastate the enemy team. This is due to Silencer’s innate ability ‘Intelligence Steal’. If Silencer is within 925 units of an enemy death or if he kills the enemy hero he will steal 2 intelligence from them and add it to his own. Allowing Silencer to be near each enemy hero death, by rotating Silencer to help get kills, delaying an instant kill so that Silencer can get close and quite literally steal the ability of enemy heroes to use their abilities. I’ve seen Silencers take so much intelligence that a Pudge was only able to get off one hook and no ult as his mana pool was so low from losing too much intelligence. Luckily for you Silencer does not need to skill anything to gain this ability, he has it at all times.
Core
As a core hero your items and hero talents are slightly different. I typically like to build into a Hurricane Pike then an Orchid after getting Power Treads. The Hurricane Pike will allow you to get close to the enemy to steal their intelligence as well as getting you out of trouble if an enemy gets near you.
For hero Talents, attack speed, intelligence steal, curse damage and glaives damage are what I would typically recommend. This is so that you can dish out as much damage as possible and steal as much intelligence as possible. Finally, get an Aghanim’s Scepter if you want to crush your enemies. By increasing Glaives damage by 100% and having the damage pierce magic immune enemies you can three shot more than a few heroes out there.
Support
As a support hero your playstyle will be very different. Here it is important for you to be near the kills, but not get the kill. You want to steal the intelligence but not the gold from your core. Your items are also very different. Here I suggest Mana Boots and a Rod of Atos and force staff. A Glimmer cape and drums are also good items for a support. Euls Scepter is decent but expensive and hard to farm for a hard 5 support who will be broke until they hit level 15.
Silencer Dota 2’s talent tree is why he makes such a good support. His first ability grants him armor, making him a tank, then he gets a whopping 120 gold per minute talent at 15 so that he can afford all wards and support items that will be needed. Once again I would go for the curse damage, but as a support go for the +2 Global Silence duration at level 25, this creates an 8 second Global Silence that is longer than most team fights.
Versatility
Silencer Dota 2 is an extremely versatile hero, able to play both core and support roles, making him an easy first pick in most games. If you know how to play both ways you can adapt to the play styles of your teammates. Silencer is dependent on having a team around him to either keep him safe to dish out damage if he is aiding them. He cannot win the game on his own, so remember: Teamwork makes the Dream Work.