Naga Siren/Guide

Hero

Strategy

Equipment

Gear

Gameplay[]

Playstyle
Naga Siren is a versatile hero who can appear to be a team's hard carry while actually being just a support. As a support, you can pin down an enemy with Ensnare, reduce armor with Rip Tide and damage without putting yourself in danger with Mirror Image. Also, you have a fearsome teamfight presence in Song of the Siren which puts enemies to sleep. As a carry however, you will use your images and Rip Tide to farm the jungle and push the lanes, and your Song as a get-out-of-jail-free card, eventually crushing the enemy's base under the ocean's pressure.
Pros	Cons
Role versatility. Good at split pushing and wave cutting. Song of the Siren allows team to reset or initiate fights. Low cooldown root. Fast farmer with Radiance.	Farm dependent no matter what role she plays. Low burst damage without items. Easy to misuse Song of the Siren with poor communication and timing. Requires some basic micromanagement skills.

Carry[]

Naga Siren is renown to be one of the most boring carries to play against (or watch). She will never put herself in harm's way, instead pushing one or more lanes at once thanks to Mirror Image while she will be farming the jungle. Because the illusions keep the lane pushed to provide vision and map control, enemies will have trouble ganking her without using Smoke of Deceit. Furthermore, Song of the Siren either allows her to run away or wait for her team to react if enemies have not bursted her down quickly enough.

As a carry Naga Siren, you should almost always go for Radiance as your first major item. However, do not forget to buy enough cheap and cost-efficient items to fill your slots like Wraith Band or Infused Raindrops. Then, go for Boots of Travel, Manta Style, and Octarine Core to constantly produce illusions and Rip Tide, pushing out all the lanes and razing jungle camps. Finally, consider choosing between Butterfly, Heart of Tarrasque, Diffusal Blade, or Eye of Skadi to increase survivability and damage output of Naga Siren and illusions, applying constant pressure on all lanes to limit opportunities for enemies to make plays as they will have to defend nonstop.

As for your ability build, you can opt for an early value point in Ensnare if you want some disable to produce kills with teammates. Otherwise, focus entirely on Rip Tide and Mirror Image so you can use them for farming lanes and jungle camps.

Support[]

Naga Siren has always been a strong support hero. Her images make the perfect scouting tools and natural aura carriers, so Drum of Endurance and Vladmir's Offering works in this case. She has a reliable root with Ensnare and some armor reduction to soften the enemies (and Roshan) with Rip Tide. Later on, you can go for utilities like Glimmer Cape, Force Staff, or Lotus Orb.

As a support, you will want to make a proper usage of Song of the Siren. In a scenario where you have little to no coordination with your team, you best should use it to contest and possibly steal Roshan and the Aegis of the Immortal. You can also cancel an opponent's channeled spell (including Town Portal Scroll). Otherwise, use it to initiate and set up for your teammates' disables.

Regarding ability build, start off Ensnare for early setup. Then, invest in either Rip Tide for more damage and armor reduction or Ensnare for more root duration, whichever helps your team the most. Consider Mirror Image for map vision and stacking multiple neutral camps at once.

Ability Builds[]

Carry Naga Siren
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20	25

Support Naga Siren
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20	25

Talents[]

Hero Talents
-1 Attack to Trigger Rip Tide	25	-10s Mirror Image Cooldown
+1 Mirror Image Illusion	20	-20s Song of the Siren Cooldown
+15 Strength	15	+10% Mirror Image Damage
+25 Rip Tide Damage	10	-2s Ensnare Cooldown

Tips & Tactics[]

General[]

Naga Siren can push with impunity; Rip Tide can affect entire creep waves, Mirror Image's illusions can deal tremendous damage to towers, and Song of the Siren paves her retreat path from enemy ganks. As a result, playing against Naga Siren will become increasingly difficult over time as she can always farm and push all the lanes at once without fear of dying.
A strong item combination on Naga Siren involves Linken's Sphere and Boots of Travel. These items make Naga Siren an incredibly versatile pusher, and Linkens makes it nigh impossible to catch her off-guard while pushing, allowing for an easy Song of Siren escape. Another item worth mentioning is Radiance. Slithice's illusions carry the Radiance aura, allowing farming over large areas and greater combat presence.
As a carry Naga, there will be games where you have more farm than you know what to do with. So, you have a few choices for what to spend on: save for buyback, consume a Moon Shard or give it to your teammates, upgrade to Boots of Travel 2, and start buying Gem of True Sight and other support consumables for your team.
If you still have gold to spare, consider the following items and scenarios for the ultra-late game. Using your 7-second AoE disable, you can play around your backpack or even the Flying Courier that hold extra items. Swap out Black King Bar instead to increase survivability. You can also swap out Butterfly for Refresher Orb to refresh your illusions, Black King Bar and Song of the Siren. Still got some time to spare? Include the active of Mjollnir in this combo, that you will apply twice, and combine Song with an Aghanim's Scepter for its healing properties. 11-slotted Naga is a little unusual; yet 8-slotted Naga (with Black King Bar and Refresher Orb) is definitely not unheard of. It has been done before and will be done again.

Abilities[]

Mirror Image[]

Mirror Image's short period of invulnerability can allow Naga Siren to disjoint projectiles. Some easier examples (due to slow projectile speed) include Storm Hammer and Death Pulse.
Note that none of the auras from Vladmir's Offering will affect illusions from Mirror Image, but they will carry it for the rest of your team, or to help creeps.
Combined with Rip Tide and items, the illusions generated by Mirror Image can greatly enhance Naga Sirens's farm, allowing her to take two camps at once during the early game, and eventually three to four from mid to late game.
When defending, try to send illusions out one by one so the enemies cannot just use their area abilities to clear them all.
- Also, try to creep skip by sending one illusion to intercept the next creep wave. Without lane creeps around, allied buildings will enjoy Backdoor Protection, squashing enemy opportunities to push
Casting Mirror Image will apply dispel to remove negative debuffs, similar to Manta Style.
With Radiance, you can command Naga Siren illusions to patrol between two adjacent neutral camps, burning them without taking much damage.

Ensnare[]

Ensnare has a long cast time and a slow projectile that can be disjointed. When chasing, avoid casting this at maximum range or places where the target can juke into the fog of war, interrupting the cast.
Ensnare provides true sight if it connects, but the target can dodge it if they completely fade before the net lands.
After ensnaring a target, if you are unable to kill it before the root runs out, use the root time to reposition your illusions behind the target to bodyblock and allow more time to hit the target.
All illusions nearby pretend to cast Ensnare when it is cast. By moving a single illusion separate from the rest, this can help trick enemies into using disables and other spells on your illusions.

Rip Tide[]

Rip Tide's damage and armor reduction allow Naga Siren to hit hard even in the early game, so you should invest levels in it as soon as possible. You can deal some magical damage with it, but most importantly, you should use it for armor reduction that affects enemies as well as Roshan, boosting damage output of allies and your own illusions.
Rip Tide will affect targets around Naga Siren's illusions. Use it to farm creeps or safely apply debuff on enemies.
Naga Siren and illusions benefit from increased attack speed and agility to proc Rip Tide more often.
Tips needed.

Song of the Siren[]

Song of the Siren is often used to make another initiator's job much easier, as it gives them time to position themselves while you put targets to sleep.
Sometimes, you might unintentionally interrupt your teammates' momentum when using this ability for your own sake. Avoid using it as an extra team-fight disable when your teammates already have the upper hand disabling the enemy, as it wastes their abilities by completely making their targets invulnerable. Instead, opt for using Ensnare as a disable or just cancel the Song.
Use Song of the Siren as an escape by putting your pursuers to sleep. Make sure to always have enough mana for this ability and Town Portal Scroll for smooth escape.
Enemies with spell immunity, like from Black King Bar, will not sleep under Song of the Siren. In this case, you can still use Ensnare and tell your teammates to finish the job with physical damage.
Song of the Siren does not affect Roshan; use it to put enemies to sleep as your team safely acquires Aegis of the Immortal.
You cannot attack enemy buildings under Song of the Siren, but you can deny your own towers.
Shift-queue Song of the Siren End while Naga Siren is channeling Meteor Hammer to better time the stun.
- Shift-queue self-cast Shadow Amulet three times followed by Song of the Siren End to minimize reaction time.

Items[]

Starting items:

Tango provides needed health regeneration during the laning phase.
Healing Salve also restores health early on.
Quelling Blade grants bonus damage against creeps to secure last hits.

Early game:

Bottle helps with sustain and rune control when farming the mid lane.
Boots of Speed provides movement speed so Naga Siren can walk to her farm.

Mid game:

Power Treads give agility and attack speed, benefiting illusions as well, to proc Rip Tide.
Diffusal Blade gives her more damage, armor and attack speed, as well as Manabreak on attacks which greatly boosts damage output of her and her illusions.
Manta Style gives her good attribute bonuses as well as the ability to summon more illusions.
Radiance gives a lot of damage and the Radiance aura works on illusions, giving Naga Siren the ability to farm multiple areas of the map at the same time thanks to Mirror Image. Makes ultimate ability very dangerous. Positioning deep inside of enemies prevents enemies from blinking away or in once ultimate expired and they got a tick of damage from Radiance.

Late game:

Octarine Core reduces the cooldowns of Naga Siren's abilities, greatly improving her pushing power and making her much harder to gank.
Aghanim's Scepter allows Naga Siren to cast Ensnare on spell immune enemies and it also gives her Reel In ability, with which she can pull the enemy hero affected by Ensnare to herself and her team, similarly to Batrider's Flaming Lasso.
Aghanim's Shard provides great heal to allied heroes during Song of the Siren, a terrific support item to boost team's survivability and turn around teamfights.
Bloodthorn will give Naga Siren great attack speed, attack damage, intelligence, magic resistance, health regeneration and mana regeneration, and will allow her to silence and enemy hero and to cause every attack from her and her illusions to have true strike while also weakening spell damage of the enemy who gets attacked by it.

Situational items:

Infused Raindrops gives good mana regeneration to keep using your abilities, and allows Naga Siren to survive some magical burst.
Magic Wand provides attributes and burst of health and mana, a useful sustain item no matter the role of Naga Siren.
Arcane Boots solve Naga Siren's early mana issues, and it can later be upgraded into Guardian Greaves to heal nearby allied heroes and to apply a basic dispel on Naga Siren.
Drum of Endurance gives solid overall attributes, and an active that increases movement and attack speed to Naga Siren, allied heroes, and illusions around her.
Meteor Hammer's area stun combos well with Song of the Siren, giving the enemies little time to react.
Spirit Vessel grants Naga Siren various bonuses like health and movement speed, as well as an ability to heal teammates or counter enemy healing.
Blink Dagger grants mobility so Naga Siren can better initiate with Song of the Siren.
Boots of Travel makes Naga Siren an incredibly strong pusher and increases her farm speed.
Heart of Tarrasque provides a large amount of health, tanking Naga Siren and her illusions up massively. It also provides enormous passive health regeneration while not fighting, so she can return to fights faster with full health.
Butterfly offers bonus attack speed, damage, and armor, as well as evasion that gives more survivability to her and her illusions.
Linken's Sphere provides good all around attributes as well as regeneration, which allows Naga Siren to stay farming without having to go back to base. On top of that, it provides a spellblock which can make Naga Siren harder to kill in conjunction with Song of the Siren.
Dagon can give Naga Siren great magical burst damage and a tool to put Linken's Sphere on cooldown if an enemy hero tries to protect themselves with it against Ensnare. And it will also give Naga Siren spell lifesteal, which will allow her to heal herself by dealing damage with Rip Tide and Radiance.
Ethereal Blade can give Naga Siren good attributes, bonus mana regeneration, protection against enemy heroes who rely on physical damage, and it can also amplify the damage or Rip Tide, Radiance and Dagon (if she already has it) and increase the cast range of Ensnare. However, Ethereal Blade should be bought only when playing Naga Siren as Nuker because Naga Siren relies mostly on direct attacks to be effective.
Veil of Discord can give Naga Siren some good attribute points and it can also amplify the damage of Rip Tide, Radiance, Ethereal Blade and Dagon (if she already has it).
Revenant's Brooch will give Naga Siren and her illusions great attack damage, and spell lifesteal that will allow them to heal themselves by dealing damage with Rip Tide and Radiance. Revenant's Brooch's active ability will also allow Naga Siren to have her attacks bypass enemy armor and to attack enemies who try to protect themselves with Ethereal Blade at the cost of 50 mana while Revenant's Brooch is toggled on.
Shiva's Guard, an upgrade for Veil of Discord will give Naga Siren and her illusions nice attributes, lots of armor, and will also allow Naga Siren to weaken attack speed, healing and magic resistance of nearby enemy heroes, making them more vulnerable to Rip Tide's magical damage.
Black King Bar will give Naga Siren spell immunity, which will allow Naga Siren to fight against enemy heroes during teamfights with minimal risk of getting affected by enemy abilities and items alike.
Monkey King Bar will allow Naga Siren's attacks to pierce through the evasion, allowing her to have easier time to apply Rip Tide on enemies.