Dota Nerubian Assassin Hero Guide

Nerubian Assassin

Nerubian Assassin is the one of the best ganking heroes in Dota and, in my opinion, the most fun to play, because you can get shitloads of kills by yourself.  The optimal strategy is simple: kill heroes every time your ultimate is up, and farm items in between.  Here is a look at the abilities:

Impale (e)

Stuns and damages units in a line.  Use to stun more than one hero at a time or to last hit creeps and harass simultaneously early in the game.  Max this out first.

Mana Burn (r)

Burns mana and damages heroes.  While clearly useful for disabling casters early, spamming this too much is a waste and will leave you without enough mana when you actually want to make a kill.  Max this out second.

Spiked Carapace (d)

Passively adds armor and melee damage return.  Don’t bother learning this early game, but it’s great later on.

Vendetta (ultimate) (v)

Makes NA invisible with a bonus backstab damage when he makes an attack.  Make sure you cast this while fogged or your opponent will hear the characteristic “windwalk” sound and get out of the way of your gank.

Strategy

Early Game

With any hero that is a gifted ganker, it is easy to get caught up in trying to get kills and forget about items altogether.  While it is definitely ideal to attempt a kill every time Vendetta cools down, it is important to use the time in between ganks and before you reach level 6 to farm as much as possible, because Nerubian Assassin is actually very item dependent.  Even though NA has three great damage dealing abilities (Impale, Mana Burn, and Vendetta), adding a Dagon to this armada is what will make you really deadly and able to kill heroes on your own, without the aid of an ally.

Therefore, it is of crucial importance to focus on last hitting early and get a Bottle and Boots as quickly as possible.  This will allow you to control the runes and gank swiftly as soon as you are level six.  Get what kills you can at this point, and then get back to farming your Dagon intermittently, whenever Vendetta is cooling off.

Mid Game

As soon as you have farmed your Dagon, hopefully the game is still early, and you can have a sigh of relief as you have reached the “tipping point” where you can effectively kill a bunch heroes completely by yourself.  Any intelligence or agility heroes on the other team have now become your food, and you can completely kill them without them having any say in it, i.e. you Vendetta + Impale + Mana Burn + Dagon, and the target is dead before Impale’s stun has even worn off.  After which you get back to farming briefly, before grabbing another rune to refill your mana and going to pick off another helpless pub when Vendetta is up again.

Dagon kills are fun

Set two milestones for yourself: level 11 and level 16.  At these points Vendetta becomes significantly better, with a duration of 50 and 60 seconds respectively.  This is long enough for you to cast Vendetta from the fountain (and regain the mana), and then walk all the way to your target and kill it without the invisibility wearing off.  At level 16, the cooldown (60 sec) is equivalent to the time Vendetta lasts, which means you can gank continuously, getting one kill per minute, which is of course, extremely satisfying, and why you are playing NA in the first place!

Late Game

After your Dagon, set your sights on Stygian Desolator.  While it is incredibly tempting to spend the 4400 gold for this item on Dagon upgrades instead, getting Desolator is something that will make your hero much more dangerous in the long run, and not useless late game.  Desolator greatly enhances the initial damage done by Vendetta (since it reduces armor), as well as your following attacks, and will allow you to destroy much stronger targets.  Remember that wimpy heroes on the other team will be continuously tanking up, so you must stay one step ahead so that you are able to keep killing them whenever you want.

Good luck, and by following this guide you can have plenty of games like this.

Crushmas ain’t over Peroxide; it’s just getting started

nice joke

u ok Peroxide?

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u ok Peroxide?

TylerG makes a good big spoon, epic dagon rip, Black Holes for all, AND MORE

epic Dagon rip; sn0wfl4ke gets torn up

Black Holes for all; someone insert the shocker

TylerG makes a good big spoon

mini-nigmas go at it

~*~ Swindle Time ~*~

Imba teams

It was definately swindle time when DXD-Bot flopped a Bleak/daggius/LoLP2 combo one evening last week. However, things started to go South for the “dream team” when a certain lightweight on Scourge fed First Blood, denying daggius an easy trophy for his collection.

Things got worse when drunken moron Bleak left the game in the 12th minute, leaving the Scourge shorthanded. A rude Sentinel team wouldn’t draw the game. Daggius vowed to make his unsporting opponents suffer, and completing an early Dagon on Lich, he ripped up their carries repeatedly in an effort to slow their farm. Sadly, newbs on his team like LoLP2 weren’t bringing the type of quality game needed to forge a convincing come-from-behind victory, and the game began to slip out of reach. Finally, Karma threw the trailing Scourge team a massive bone when Sentinel player zephboy lagged out in the 38th minute, evening the teams to four vs. four.

Teams are evened

The newly inspired Scourge team took command of the match and fought on, knowing their Phantom Assassin and Chaos Knight could carry in late game.

Can't complain about a 1596 Crit

The Scourge pressed on and won the game, having survived through a teammate drop in the 12th minute to taste late game glory.

Take notes kinpin: 32 assist Lich played a part in 76% of Scourge's kills GG

Clan Milk "Swindle Squad" ripped up 58-39

Needless to say, talk of swindle was in the air when the DXD bot placed all three Clan Milk players on the same team. However, 21-4-20 and 22-5-10 performances by daggius and feared- elevated a heavily newb-laden Scourge team to a tremendous victory. The game was perhaps best characterized by the relentless pounding in the bum of daggius’s Viper on Milkfat’s Sniper, a rivalry that began in the middle lane before manifesting itself in ganks on all parts of the map as Milkfat searched helplessly for free farm. None could be found. Overall, daggius went 16-2 against Clan Milk players. GOT MILK? Feared-’s Weaver was equally impressive. Nurturing a spree 17 kills long for much of the game, he fed heavily on Sentinel players, especially the horribly incompetant NTD.ManhaE-, who went 1-10 in this individual matchup. The.new.me. played respectable support, earning 22 assists for the Scourge team with his Dagon Zeus. After a slow start, Milkfat found his footing later in the game, amassing 16 kills with a Lothar’s Edge and MKB in a surge that was, unfortunately for Clan Milk, too little too late.

Milkfat's early farming efforts were thwarted by ninja-ganks like this one at the nearest-to-base Creep Camp.

Milkasaurusrex spent 12 minutes dead, nearly one fifth of the game.

As the feed became insurmountable, excuses began to flow.

Pimp my Viper.

Replay: http://www.dota-allstars.com/replay/54364/index.html