General Discussionshadow friend

Purely my own conjecture over the last few games (since I've recently started playing a lot of SF and been winning)
I will assume that you are playing mid (As most of the time, you want to be a solo-lane-dominator), the role of the hero between early and mid-game is:
1. Get as many lh as early as possible.
2. Deny as much as you can.
3. Be as efficient as possible with your mana.

These are the rules I play with SF. Now there are three possibilities; either your lane is easy, or you are just barely trading with the enemy mid-laner, or you are in a losing position (Ex.: Counter-picked, or harassed a lot by constant support rotations).

In the first case, you are undeniably going to get more farm than the enemy mid-laner, and thus, gain more early levels. Focus on being as much of a pain (Harass with razes, deny as much as you can afford to), and get your early game items as early as possible (Almost always: Treads/Phase(?) > Wraith into Aquila > Wand if against spammable spell heroes like Zeus, etc.)

The second-case is what makes SF so great a pick. Most of the time, when two mid-laners are trading in lane, they get an equal number of CS/Deny ratio. Except, with SF, all you need to do, is when you hit a sufficiently higher lvl (4-5), you can do the following:
1. Raze the waves (Long, then medium), and send the wave in
2. Stock up on clarities/magoes (though they're more expensive/less efficient), and go towards the Neutral-hard and medium camps, and raze those, and watch your lane.
3. If the lane is in the middle while you are jungling, get ready to walk back and meet the incoming creeps, and repeat Step 1.

And so, you are now not only efficiently farming every wave in mid, you are also farming *faster* and also, in a way, denying the enemy mid from denying you that XP. In most low-tier games you'll rarely find people who understand this concept that SF can exploit, and so almost always, you will be up in farm, while still defending your lane.

The third case is what most (good) games will be about, because the enemy *knows* all of the above. In that situation, you are forced to do a bit of second-case scenario, while also probably watching other lanes, to see where you can create most impact. SF is a hero that needs levels, but with even just 2 to 3 points in razes, you can easily gank and pressure other lanes, so in a way, you are countering the whole "Gank SF constantly" mentality (Something, say, a hero like Tinker cannot do so easily, and who is almost anchored to the mid-lane).

The second part of your question is logical: It's not a question of what build you should use but understanding your weaknesses and strenghts and playing the role.

Who are you playing against? Are they a big issue now, soon or later in the game? What items will they build to counter me?

To give you an example, if the enemy has a hero that relies a lot on their passive to be relevant/survive, you need to be planning to go Shadow blade > Into eventual Silver Edge. In that scenario, your build is most likely transitioning towards a Physical damage build. Then again, if you are playing agaist a PA, her Power Spikes come a bit earlier, and are slightly stronger (given the right situation), so maybe you want to focus on bursting her down, so you want to go Magic build. Except, maybe the enemy have a lot of disables, so pulling of the Eul's combo might be nearly impossible, so instead just being a pure right-click (Dragonlance > Hurricane pike, although it's not really meta) might be the best solution. Eul's doesn't just work for the combo btw, it can also save you and it's generally meant to be so you are elusive and hard to catch.

To summarize, the most important thing to consider when wondering what build you are going for is to look at the enemy team and think "How best can I do the most damage to them?". Sometimes a strange combination of the above could work too, that's just how the game is :).

I hope this wasn't too long, and sorry if you haven't read until now, I just really like the hero and it's fun for me :D

P.S: Also an important note I forgot to mention; the best way you can win your lane, even against counters, is to pull the creep wave away from where they meet in the middle (so you walk a bit towards the left or right side of the river and draw aggro). What this does is it allows you to:
1. Force the enemy to walk in, so you can
2. Harass while also taking less creep-wave damage, and to eventually
3. Raze and force the enemy to back away, thereby allowing to safely lh/deny and thus, you are now winning the lane :).

Lately I've been picking TA against SF and it works pretty well in my bracket.

I only pick TA in party games tho, cause I want to make sure my team have enough disables. (Still practicing)

Edit : Just realized I commented on the wrong post XD.

Still watch out for TA tho.

Just buy whatever u need

CPFM said it all. Nothing more needs to be said. That was quite an accurate summary.

TA counters nukers so it’s not just in your bracket

@zodiac gotta watch out for the other 4 heroes too mate

well said by cpfm. just to add, the first night time at 4min to be careful, especially when supports/ganker are missing. invest raindrops if enemy team has alot of ganker that deals magical damage, sky, es, witch doctor, many of times it saves me... if you are doing good thats the best time for you to rotate as well since you have the level advantage against the other lanes. buy your own wards place near bounty. many of times i to gank other lanes when i picked up invi or dd rune.

No u dont. That hero was broken in many ways. Just pray he was dumb enough to play

Ta? Are u kidding me brother? Just need 1 counter like veno and she already dead meat. its look like you really think you can counter sf with that bullshit talent, yes? (10 spell amp, 40ms, 15scd bkb, 6scd pike)

Nb: i destroy sf with pos5 riki. Just fight broken with broken

i dont really play SF or mid in general but from what ive seen in games Sky really kicks the crap out of him in mid with the spammable nuke and slow being able to burn even through raindrop charges rapidly. Either way... a hero that has a winrate of 46-48% between all skill brackets doesnt strike me as the best pick... so i dont get why he is picked so much... is it the "coolness" factor? ... cause for me there are lane dominators that can do much better in mid.

Only time you should worry about lane matchup (at least in archon) is if the other team has a TA player (very rare in Archon. 95% of the time if there's a TA in my game, it's me playing it) or a Tinker (very common). I still haven't figured out how to deal with Tinker despite winning ~66% of SF games.

With TA, you just need to stay well enough back on your HG and keep moving around (don't get hit by psi blades). Start double razing waves at lvl 3 and take one or both of the medium/hard camps nearby depending on wave positioning and where the TA is. Always have a sentry covering the edge of your HG where tower vision doesn't reach because if you get caught by a fully charged trap at lvl6/7, you're dead. After lane, just find a place where there's no one, blow up a bunch of waves with razes till the waves meet near the other team's tower. Push if you can see other heroes on the map, back off and make your way back to jungle and head back to another lane while taking camps on the way if the other team's heroes are not on the map. Rinse and repeat till you have ~3 main items. Profit. TA vs SF isn't nearly as bad mid-late game as it is in lane where an average TA can run circles around an excellent SF most of the time at equal MMR (played TA vs SFs who are 1k MMR higher than me a few times in party ranked. Only lost lane once).

If you are playing against Sky mid, any match up is hard. You just need to bite the bullet and buy (lots) of regen and get the most you can out of the lane. Most mid-lane heroes have kill potential, and Skywraths tend to be a bit overzealous and overextend (also just the cast-range, so as a Sky, you need to be really aggressive with positioning); the hero is even squishier and easier to overwhelm with 2v1/3v1 ganks, so it's not something I'd genuinely worry about (in a good game :D). Generally, the less he is fed, the easier it is to deal with him over time. I like to rush boots, cause while it may look like he's fast, he's actually quite slow compared to SF's ms. Boots > Raindrops > Mango and then just posture at him when he is going very aggressive.

TA is a popular pick against SF, and that's where the 2nd scenario plays out, cause she can't really do that much to you when you aren't there to get hit by her blades. She's also the type to push the lanes in hard anyway, so it works out for you, and thus you are trading equally. (A suggestion would be to eventually get a sentry around Lvl6, cause her traps are her killing potential, so removing them can be the difference between living and dying).

Regen and raindrops are your friend against any bad lane :)

As long as you have a healthy amount of HP and mana, SF is always capable of dominating a lane.

As to why there's an average win-rate with the hero, I remember watching somewhere that it's mostly cause he's such a flashy hero and a popular pick, that a lot of the times it's people who don't really understand it and end up either doing average/above-average in laning, and then feeding mid-game because of the lack of game-sense, or just genuinely harder to pull off than other heroes can offer you the same (a.k.a Tinker who just needs to laser your ass).

As to how to destroy a good SF? Well you need to focus on him from lvl1. Either ask your roaming support to constantly zone him out of lane as long as possible (Bane is truly a nightmare), or genuinely if you can't really lane against it, you need to see where else you can create an impact. Generally, heroes that are anchored at mid (Veno who wants to get XPM advantage and push with wards, Tinker who needs that soul-ring and those damn boots, etc.) are the type that can fend off SF/trade with him, regardless of his skill. So in that scenario, it's dependent on who has the better support rotations.

And in my bracket, that's not really an issue :)

NO STOP TRASH COMMENTING U CAN'T DO THAT U CAN'T WIN VS EVERY HERO WITH BLOODY SF