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[umiman]

Vanguard has been nerfed significantly on ranged heroes for a few years now. It's substantially more efficient to build Mek on them. Have a look at all the recent tourney games with Vipers and Razors. Here's all the TI4 matches: http://www.dotabuff.com/matches/ti4

Also that Viper's build is fairly normal. The most common Viper build is Aquila, Mek into Aghs. In this case since Lich got Mek, I guess Viper just skipped it. Honestly Viper couldn't really care less. He's not particularly item dependent. Which is why he's so easy and he scales like arse.

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Edit: I just remembered that when I first played Dota, I played Viper a shittonne, so I went to check my builds from back then. Behold the magnificence of Wraith Band: http://www.dotabuff.com/players/42222911/matches?date=&faction=&hero=viper&lobby_type=normal_matchmaking&game_mode=&region=&duration=

71.43% winrate boys.

[Cthulhu]

Skull basher is awesome too, I'm addicted to it and build it on almost all my melee fighters.  Bloodseeker's attack is pretty slow though so I don't like it as much on him.  It's hilarious on like, Nightstalker, with his giant speed boost at night, but I'd probably only get it on Bloodseeker if I was getting fed as fuck or there were guys I really needed it for (I see it as an anti-pubcarry item, guys like Riki and Sniper are ten different kinds of fucked if you get on them with basher)

Still, anything is better than the pubcyka shit I always see.  I think half hte reason bloodseeker has such a bad reputation is the shit people buy on him.  Force staff, dagon, radiance, I've seen fucking midas on him before, SnY, he's already a gimmicky hero and I always see people buying items that just make him even more gimmicky.

That and of course the reddit 7k mmr scenario:  If bloodseeker attacks you alone in your jungle and you've got more than half HP and he doesn't have skull basher or Eul's, and you've got a TP scroll off cooldown and you don't panic and he isn't already fed as fuck off the rest of your team, you'll probably be okay.

Therefore bloodseeker is the worst hero in the game.

[Vibe]

Vanguard would be a great item if you could disassemble it

[Astral]

Vanguard would be a great item if you could disassemble it

Its usefulness would increase somewhat, since you could assemble the components into various other items (Heart, Bloodstone, etc), but the reason it ends up so cheap and gives a comparatively large bonus is because it's an early game item. I'm sure there's some reasoning as to why Vanguard has remained largely unchanged except for minor tweaks over the years.

[Karkov]

Just wanted to say that someone is creating GreenTD already for the custom games.  My body is ready.

Also yeah, main complaint with Vanguard is that you can't disassemble it.  Otherwise the only other complaint I have for it is that people buy it and then never go ham with it, they just go back to farming.

[Astral]

Which is odd, because it negates a good chunk of the damage that tower shots do, making early diving that much easier.

I guess most people who get it are junglers (and as I've mentioned before, I generally tend to think that junglers are completely fucking useless), and occasionally tanky melee get it in lane but then just use it to stay in lane longer.

I find it good for Slark, as it keeps him alive longer to get to 6, and makes it much easier to just leap under a tower to kill someone, and possibly Antimage, since he needs the defensive stats, but I can't find too many others who it's useful for, and mostly see it as a situational item. It won't save you from getting stomped in lane that much, because you'll be losing more useful mid game items for the investment, and late game 40 damage block isn't that much.

[Putnam]

Is it wrong for me to eschew Shadow Blade nearly every time a guide recommends it in exchange for Blink Dagger?

[umiman]

It's fine. Shadow blade got nerfed quite a bit and blink is really good now that it has no mana cost.

No one will flame you if you bought a blink on every hero. If they did they're probably morons.

Shadow blade still has its uses though. Against crappy opponents, it's like a get out of jail free card as they don't buy detection. Essentially the more capable your opponents, the less useful shadow blade becomes.

[Astral]

Either one is situational, but Shadow Blade is like an "I win" button for public games, as people rarely tend to get invisibility detection unless you become a major problem, or have a champion that relies on it to do anything at all (See: Broodmother). The part that makes it better is that it gives stats that make it better for outright attacking, can be used offensively or defensively (without the 3 second cooldown after taking damage from an enemy champion), and works while channeling.

Blink Dagger is more offensively oriented, being cheaper by 950 gold (but unable to be bought in parts), and better at surprising people. It also has the advantage of being able to get to otherwise unreachable areas (I was surprised that they re-enabled it for Pudge, because there are a lot of areas that he can hook you into that are inescapable). But as noted before, if you're caught, it has little chance of being able to get you out of it unless you're significantly faster than the enemy, or good at juking. The no mana cost is a huge plus, too, as well as having half the cooldown of Shadow Blade.

I tend toward Shadow Blade too as it is, unless playing someone like Enigma or Pudge. The attack stats benefit carries like Drow or Legionaire much more than they would others, and I tend to play carries. Even Witchdoctor is better oriented to use Shadow Blade, as he can more or less freely cast his ultimate and become invisible at the same time, while maintaining an ability to escape or initiate as needed.

[Thexor]

The main argument against disassembling Vanguard is what it would build into. Namely:

* Stout Shield: Utterly useless, unless your idea of an awesome late-game item is a Poor Man's Shield. 

* Ring of Health: Used for Pipe, Battlefury, Bloodstone, Linkens, and Refresher.

* Vitality Booster: Used for Atos, Heart, and Bloodstone.

Bloodstone uses both expensive components, but is primarily built on ranged heroes (Storm, Leshrac, etc) who wouldn't benefit much from Vanguard. The scariest item is Battlefury, which might lead to Anti-Mage and other BF-based carries building Vanguard for early survivability. AM often picks up the RoH in lane anyways, so grabbing the Vit Booster early for nigh-invulnerability wouldn't be a stretch. It's a similar problem with Linkens carries (though many of them are ranged). By contrast, Atos and Pipe are uncommon pickups.

Basically, a disassemblable Vanguard would significantly help hard carries with weak early-to-mid-game presence, giving them an intermediary item that builds into a powerful late-game tool(s) they were already planning to grab. By contrast, few mid-game heroes (AKA the heroes Vanguard is supposed to help) would gain any benefit at all from disassembling Vanguard, as almost no useful midgame items contain a recovered Vanguard component.

If you want to make Vanguard viable in its current niche, as a useful item for mid-game carries with durability problems, buff its stats to make it a viable competitor to Drums and similar items. Disassembly won't achieve what people seem to think it would achieve.

[frostshotgg]

Vangard being disassebleable on Death Prophet would be hilarious. Build your entire bloodstone in other items!

[Heron TSG]

I was surprised that they re-enabled it for Pudge, because there are a lot of areas that he can hook you into that are inescapable

If you are hooked by Pudge or swapped by VS into an impassible area such as a bunch of trees or a cliff, you get free pathing for a few seconds to get out.

I dunno about you guys, but the second I see someone pick up a shadow blade I buy dust and rustle up a posse to go gank them. 80% of the time they expect their surprise shadow blade to save them and they give up a free kill.

[Cthulhu]

I had a dream that I was playing drow ranger in a dota version of the League halloween map (with all the orange) and got a couple early kills so I got some items...

I got a shadow blade of course, figuring I was against nubs and could take advantage.

I got two stacks of frost arrows because in this dream dota frost arrows was an item.

And I got something else called "waste" which I think was also a type of arrow, it had an arrow icon, but it didn't do anything and I sold it.

And after I got the shadow blade it turned out I wasn't playing against nubs and things went pretty badly.  I ended up going to bed while the game was still going, and since I got an abandon the game changed my name to "Troll" and gave me a trollface icon.

[crazysheep]

... since I got an abandon the game changed my name to "Troll" and gave me a trollface icon.

volvo implement this please

[RexMundi]

well Axe. Axe wins.

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