LogFAQs > #962001383

I didn't forget, you forgot (although I *did* say I was gonna maybe not do them on the weekend.)

115 - Night Stalker (melee Strength)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/3/6/AAAACbAAC1ss.jpg
Base abilities: Void, Crippling Fear, Hunter in the Night, Dark Ascension
Shard ability: Upgraded Hunter in the Night- allows casting the ability to insta-kill a creep (or ancient at night) to instantly heal a portion of his health and mana.
Scepter ability: Upgraded Void - Void becomes AoE targetted and deals more damage.

Ol' Balanar has gone through quite the identity crisis over the years. Back in early WC3 Dota, he was a midlane or offlane terror who won games singlehandedly the first night; Crippling Fear used to be single-targetted at range, and also caused the target to have a substantial miss chance, but it also did nothing during daytime. Void used to still ministun during the daytime, so if he came to gank you even at his weakest but with backup, you were still in for a world of hurt. He also had an ult "Darkness," which did nothing but mess with the day-night cycle - turned the day to night for a time, to trigger his passive, or extended the night for the duration of the buff.

This carried over to Dota 2 for a while - at his peak, Night Stalker was rushing a Refresher Orb just to keep the night on, with something as ridiculous as 85% nighttime. Even worse, the nighttime caused by Darkness reduced *all* enemy vision by a set radius - if any League players are acquainted with Nocturne, picture Nocturne's ult striking everything with the interface-screw, including wards. What's extra-silly about this time is that Night Stalker was played as a position 3 or a position 4, support, because his scepter at the time gave him extra flying vision at night. Fun aside from that era - Keeper of the Light had a similar passive during the day, except he was permanently in spirit form during the day with the Flying Vision and all the cast range/self heal benefits that went along with it, leading a few circles to call NS "Keeper of the Night."

Fast forward to today and its set 5:00 of day/5:00 of night cycle. Night Stalker is a bog-standard melee Strength with stat gains to match- durable but prone to harass early, awful attack animation with middling damage when it connects, can't harass with damage spells without running out of mana quickly, and only scary after the 5:00 mark - but good luck getting to a level where that threat shows itself, since NS's gank ability during the first night is based off whether he levelled Void for a single-target slow+nuke or Hunter in the Night for the movespeed/attackspeed buff, and to what level. Anyone with an early disable or good at warding is going to be able to see him coming even with his flying movement during his ultimate, and NS isn't durable enough to take an early towerdive and has to pick up the scraps of the current trend of "four man rotation to teamfight." The second night usually goes much better for him, but what it boils down to is, if you failed at ganking, you're contributing the better part of 15 minutes of towards subpar farming ability to become a semi-carry, and, just like when Dark Ascension is on cooldown, that just doesn't fly. 0.5/10, pick Spiritbreaker and fish for bashes instead.

Next hero hint: strangely a vampire.