Slark

Slark 21 + 1.9 21 + 1.7 16 + 1.7
	Grants the following bonuses per point of attribute:
	+22HP and +0.1HP regeneration
	+0.17 armor and 1 attack speed; +1 main attack damage
	+12MP and +0.05MP regeneration; +0.1% base magic resistance ;
L0	Base Hero Values
L1	⤷ + Base Attributes
L15	⤷ + Attribute Gain
L25	⤷ + 6 levels of Attribute Bonus
L30	⤷ + 7 levels of Attribute Bonus
	All values shown are without talent bonuses.
Attack Animation	0.5 + 0.3
Gib Type	Default
Internal	Not Provided

Hero

Strategy

Equipment

Slark, the Nightcrawler, is a melee agility hero that utilizes his abilities to spring onto enemy heroes and slip out unhindered. He is a very mobile ganker, but remains attribute-wise below most other carries unless he is able to steal away attributes with his abilities. Once he does, though, only a few heroes can hope to be as fearsome as the Nightcrawler - extremely mobile to the point of ever-presence, his strikes only hitting harder and faster.

Slark can quickly leap forward onto enemies with Pounce to leash them and bind them from escaping. His Dark Pact releases a delayed dispel that breaks even the most powerful disables. This gives him one of the most flexible abilities to start and end fights in the game. He is also capable of stealing attributes by attacking his victim to boost his own attack damage temporarily with Essence Shift, which can rapidly shift engagements in his favor, even when merely performing hit-and-run maneuvers. Slark's ultimate, Shadow Dance, allows him to remain unseen even while attacking for a short duration and allows him to move quicker when not under the watch of enemy eyes to strike in and out of enemy ranks unhindered.

Bio

Slark, the Nightcrawler

▶️ "If I'd known I'd end up here, I'd have stayed in Dark Reef Prison."

Lore:

Little known to the inhabitants of the dry world, Dark Reef is a sunken prison where the worst of the sea-breed are sent for crimes against their fellows. It is a razor barbed warren full of murderous slithereen, treacherous Deep Ones, and sociopathic meranths. In this dim labyrinth, patrolled by eels and guarded by enormous anemones, only the vicious survive. Pitched into Dark Reef for crimes unknown, Slark spent half a lifetime without kin or kindness, trusting no one, surviving through a combination of stealth and ruthlessness, keeping his thoughts and his plans to himself. When the infamous Dark Reef Dozen plotted their ill-fated breakout, they kept their plans a perfect secret, murdering anyone who could have put the pieces together--but somehow Slark discovered their scheme and made a place for himself in it. Ten of the Dozen died in the escape attempt, and two were captured, hauled back to Dark Reef, then executed for the entertainment of their fellow inmates. But Slark, the unsung thirteenth, used the commotion as cover and slipped away, never to be caught. Now a furtive resident of the carnivorous mangrove scrub that grips the southern reach of Shadeshore, Slark remains the only successful escapee from Dark Reef.

Voice:

Tom Chantler (Responses)

Abilities

Dark Pact

▶️QC

Ability
No Target

Affects
Enemies / Self

Damage
Magical

After a short delay, Slark sacrifices some of his life blood, purging most negative debuffs and dealing damage to enemy units around him and to himself. Slark only takes 50% of the damage.

Cast Animation: +

Damage Radius: 325

Effect Delay: 1.5

Total Damage: 75/150/225/300 (

76/151/226/301)

Self Damage Percentage: 50%

9/8/7/6

60

Modifiers []

Dark Pact

Dark Pact Pulses

Slithereen are capable of quickly regrowing appendages, in case of critical injury, to save their own lives.

Dark Pact interrupts Slark's channeling spells upon cast.

Deals 7.5/15/22.5/30 ( 7.6/15.1/22.6/30.1) damage within a 325 radius in 0.1 second intervals, starting 1.5 seconds after cast for a total of 10 instances.

Slark takes 3.75/7.5/11.25/15 ( 3.8/7.55/11.3/15.05) damage in the same intervals, resulting in 37.5/75/112.5/150 ( 38/75.5/113/150.5) total damage.

Applies a strong dispel on Slark in the same intervals, before each of its damage instances.

The self-inflicted damage can be reduced or amplified, but can never kill Slark.

The visual effects and sounds during the 1.5 seconds delay is only visible and audible to allies.

The visual effect of the damaging pulses are visible even when Slark is invisible.

Dark Pact ends 2.5 seconds after cast, but ends instantly when Slark dies.

Re-casting Dark Pact during the effect delay cancels the previous cast and starts a new one instead.

Pounce

▶️WE

Ability
No Target

Affects
Enemy Heroes / Self

Slark leaps forward, grabbing the first hero he connects with. That unit is leashed, and can only move a limited distance away from Slark's landing position.

Cast Animation: +

Leap Distance: 700 (

1400)

Latch Radius: 95

Leash Radius: 400

Leash Duration: 2.5/2.75/3/3.25 (

82.5/82.75/83/83.25)

Number of Charges: 0 (

2)

Charge Replenish Time: 0 (

20/16/12/8)

20/16/12/8 (

0)

75

Aghanim's Scepter Upgrade:

Provides 2 charges and increases pounce range.

Modifiers []

Pounce

Pounce Charge Counter

Pounce Leash

Time in the Dark Reef made Slark a dangerous assassin; aggressive and fearless.

Slark leaps forward at a speed of 933.33 ( 1866.66) for up to 0.75 seconds.

Always jumps for the full distance, unless an enemy hero gets within 95 radius of Slark during the jump.

Leashes the hit enemy hero, preventing them from casting certain mobility spells.

Can latch on enemy heroes up to 795 range away (max distance + latch radius).

Slark can turn, cast spells, and use items during Pounce, but cannot attack.

Pounce can latch on invisible units, but not on invulnerable/hidden units, or on illusions.

When latching on a unit, Slark is automatically ordered to attack the target.

The more the leash gets stretched, the slower the affected unit can walk away from the center, eventually coming to a full stop. It directly affects the target's movement speed.

If cast before getting leashed, the following spells are not able to break the leash: Skewer, Leap, Pounce, Tree Dance, Primal Spring, Toggle Movement, and Hurricane Pike when targeting an enemy.

Every other position changing effect, including spells like Primal Roar and Blinding Light, can break the leash.

Force Staff and a self-targeted Hurricane Pike instantly break the leash when cast, while other sources of forced movement only break it when stretched beyond the max radius.

When the leash expires while a position changing effect is ongoing, it instantly cancels the position changing effect.
- This goes for the following spells: Flamebreak, Primal Roar, Power Cogs, Hookshot, Vacuum, Gust, Boulder Smash, Rolling Boulder, Geomagnetic Grip, Deafening Blast, Tether, Blinding Light, Adaptive Strike (Strength), Blast Off!, Charge of Darkness, Greater Bash, Timber Chain, Walrus PUNCH!, Force Staff and Hurricane Pike.

Pounce destroys trees within 100 radius around Slark upon landing.

Pounce cannot be cast during Pounce. During the leap, Pounce is on an unrefreshable cooldown which is bound to the leap buff.

Essence Shift

EN

Ability
Passive

Affects
Enemy Heroes / Self

Slark steals the life essence of enemy heroes with his attacks, draining each of their attributes and converting them to bonus Agility. If Slark kills an affected enemy hero, he permanently steals 1 Agility.

Permanent Steal Radius: 300

Permanent Agility Steal: 1

All Attributes Lost per Attack: 1

Agility Gained per Attack: 3

Duration: 15/30/60/100 (

55/70/100/140)

Modifiers []

Essence Shift Debuff

Essence Shift Counter

Essence Shift Buff

Essence Shift Permanent Buff

Essence Shift Permanent Debuff

With each strike at his adversaries, Slark's knowledge of their weaknesses improves.

Essence Shift steals attributes before attack damage is applied.

Successive attacks do not refresh the duration of all stolen/lost attributes. Each stack has its own duration.

The status buff and debuff icon show the number of current stacks and show the duration of the last stack.

Effective stats loss per stack of essence shift: 1 attack damage, 22 health, 0.1 health regen, 0% magic resistance, 0.17 armor, Expression error: Unexpected round operator.% move speed, 1 attack speed, 12 mana, 0.05 mana regen, Expression error: Unexpected round operator.% spell damage.

Effectively grants Slark 0.5 armor, Expression error: Unexpected round operator.% move speed, 3 attack speed, and 3 attack damage per stack.

Essence Shift cannot reduce any attribute below 0. However, Slark continues to gain agility, both temporarily and permanently, even when the attacked hero has no more attributes left to steal.

When Slark dies, he loses all temporarily stolen attributes, but the affected enemies do not get theirs back, and vice versa.

Cannot steal attributes from illusions, but can steal from hero clones.

Cannot steal permanent attributes from Tempest Doubles, but can steal from Meepo clones.

Can steal attributes from allies.

To permanently steal agility, an enemy hero has to die within 300 range of Slark while having the Essence Shift debuff.
- Alternatively, Slark also steals agility when he kills a debuffed enemy hero from any distance.

Shadow Dance

▶️RD

Ability
No Target / Passive

Affects
Self

When used, Slark hides himself in a cloud of shadows, becoming immune to detection. Attacking, casting spells, and using items will not reveal Slark. Passively, when not visible to the enemy team, Slark gains bonus movement speed and health regeneration.

Cast Animation: +

Aura Radius: 0

Fade Time: 0

Move Speed Bonus: 20%/35%/50%

Max Health as Regen per Second: 5%/6%/7%

Passive Activation Delay: 0.5

Neutral Creep Damage Deactivate Duration: 2

Active Duration: 4/4.25/4.5 (

5/5.25/5.5)

80/70/60

120

Modifiers []

Shadow Dance Passive Regen

Shadow Dance Aura

Shadow Dance

The hidden Thirteenth is a slippery foe.

Shadow Dance interrupts Slark's channeling spells upon cast.

Slark gains or loses the health regen and movement speed bonus 0.5 seconds after getting in or out of enemy vision, or casting Shadow Dance.

If Slark is damaged by a neutral creep, the health regen and movement speed bonus are lost for 2 seconds.

When casting Shadow Dance, he turns invisible and cannot be revealed by anything. However, the black cloud created is visible to enemies.

The invisibility is granted by an aura, however, its buff does not linger.
- The aura does not affect invulnerable units, so if Slark turns invulnerable during it, he gets revealed.

Can regenerate up to 20%/25.5%/31.5% ( 25%/31.5%/38.5%) of Slark's max health over its full duration.

Can regenerate up to 300%/360%/420% of Slark's max health in one minute.

Can fully regenerate Slark's health within 20/16.67/14.29 seconds.

Shadow Dance does not allow Slark to walk through units.

Talents

Hero Talents
+40s Essence Shift Duration	25	+1s Shadow Dance Duration
+80 Shadow Dance Attack Speed	20	+1 Agility gain/stolen per Essence Shift Stack
+50 Shadow Dance Regen	15	+70 Dark Pact Damage
+0.5s Pounce Leash	10	-0.5s Dark Pact Cooldown

Recent Changes

Main Article: Slark/Changelogs

Version

Description

7.35c

Pounce
- Cooldown increased from 22/18/14/10s to 24/20/16/12s.

7.35

Increased strength gain from 1.9 to 2.1.
Increased intelligence gain from 1.7 to 1.9.

Talents:

LVL 15

+40 Shadow Dance health regeneration increased to +50.

7.34d

Talents:

LVL 25

+50s Essence Shift steal duration reduced to +40s.

Recommended items

Gameplay



The only prisoner ever to escape from Dark Reef, Slark's abilities and ruthlessness are without equal. The Nightcrawler Pounces on his foes, leaping over obstacles and pinning them to the ground. With every swing of his barnacle encrusted blade, Slark steals his target's essences, converting them to render himself more agile. He forges a Dark Pact, sacrificing his own lifeblood to dissipate negative energies that damage foes, and frees him from magical constraints. Concealing himself with Shadow Dance, the Nightcrawler presents no visible target to would-be attackers. Hidden in this black haze, Slark escapes the inescapable, and returns to gut his enemies with little risk of retribution.

Roles:	Carry Escape Disabler Nuker
Complexity:
Adjectives:	Legs `( 2 )`

Strategy & Tips

Counters &
Matchups

Audio

Responses

Sounds

History

Lore

Old Abilities

Changelogs

Equipment

Trivia

Slark is named after a rare murloc in World of Warcraft.
Slark's murloc heritage was completely removed in the transition to Dota 2 to avoid copyright issues, since the murlocs are an existing race in the Warcraft universe.
Slark's response ▶️ "Met you once, cut you twice." is a reference to the carpentry phrase "measure twice, cut once".
Slark's respawn line ▶️ "Griefer madness..." is a reference to the propaganda film Reefer Madness. As well, a griefer is a role a player assumes while in a multiplayer game to deliberately irritate other players.
Slark's weapon, a shiv, is the traditional prison weapon and is a reference to his backstory.