Can anyone help about countering Ember Spirit and Legion Commander with Slark?
32 Answers
Ember spirit : The hero is very strong, in every stage of the game, and very mobile. His Flame Guard allows him to be very tanky against magical burst damage, and Bolas and Sleight of Fist allow him to deal massive damage from a long distance.
However, it is rare to see a BKB on Ember Spirit, because it delays other damage items that he really needs to be able to deal as much damage as he can with Sleight of Fist. For that reason, he is quite vulnerable to silences as he doesn't have any way to deal with it, or any items that would help him purge/remove these (unless he builds a Linken's Sphere or a BKB, but that's not what he wants to prioritize).
Besides, Ember Spirit has one of the lowest starting armor in the game for a carry hero. The reason for that is a balance one : he's naturally tanky to magic damage thanks to Flame Guard, so his weakness lies on physical damage, especially in the early / mid game.Legion Commander : This hero's main strength is her Ultimate, Duel, and the way Moment of Courage synergies with it.
The hero is not particularly mobile, doesn't have repositioning spells and needs to win a lot of duels to be able to compete with other carries. To achieve that, she will need most of the time items that allow her to initiate such as Blink Dagger or Shadow Blade.
As she requires to snowball in the early / mid game to be effective, positioning and map awareness is important early on in order not to give her crucial first duels that could help her stay in the game. It is not a hero that can play very well from behind, and duel excepted, the hero is quite easy to kite. Also, Press the Attack has a rather high cast time, so keep that in mind if she hasn't cast it yet.
If you didn't manage to shut her down in the early game, she starts becoming a problem later on, and you have to deal with the fact that she can remove completely and really fast a hero from a teamfight thanks to Duel, allowing his team to fight 5 v 4. Then again, she relies a lot on a good initiation to achieve that, therefore the previous advice on positioning and awareness are still relevant so you can initiate on her rather than let her initiate on you. Generally speaking it's a hero you want to focus first in a teamfight before she gets to use his duel, and if she manages to do so, a good idea would be to prioritize her as a target (if there aren't higher priority targets, depending on the context and the matchup of course).
These are generic ways to counter those two heroes, it's a good starting point if you happen to face any of them in matchmaking.
Now if you want to specifically counter them as Slark, I will try to give more details :
As Slark, my point still stands. Ember is very vulnerable to physical DPS and that is what Slark has the most (his "nuke" is negligible, and wont ever bring down Flame Guard in a 1v1 situation). However without proper items Ember is almost impossible to kill as his ultimate will allow him to escape from Slark's Pounce easily. This is where itemization is important :
As I said, silences are probably the most effective tool against Ember, and I think it can justify an Orchid purchase on Slark : the silence duration can allow Slark to kill Ember in a 1v1 situation most of the time if he's locked down via Pounce. If you feel like you can't afford to get Orchid over something else (BKB, more damage, etc.) Basher into an Abyssal Blade could be a great choice, but the stuns last a shorter time and unless you deal a great amount of damage, you might not be able to kill him before he jumps to a Remnant.
Against Legion Commander, it's a matter of who is hunting whom : if Legion Commander can engage a fight with Duel against Slark, Legion will most likely win as Slark is very fragile. You have to watch for her and not get caught out of position, but generally you should know when the enemy has vision over you thanks to the status icon of your ultimate so there is no reason you would get caught if you pay attention.
However, if you decide to simply auto attack Legion Commander outside Duel, you should not have any problems at all : if you start getting hit back, or she uses Press the Attack to fight you, you could consider using your Shadow Dance if your HP starts decreasing a lot. Slark's mobility as well as his ability to regenerate HP faster than anyone when he's out of sight should eventually get the best out of Legion Commander. Keep in mind that Dark Pact won't purge Duel so in a theoretical 1v1 situation you could consider not using it at all against her.
A well-fed Slark vs a Legion. Slark deals +18 damage to Legion Commander while also removing her damage.
1
