Dota 2 Hero Guide: Nortrom, The Silencer

Thoughts: This spell at first glance appears to be what you should max first. Though against heroes with low cool down/low mana cost spells you'll be the one chugging clarities. In many 1v1 scenarios its worth it to forgo any ranks of Curse in favor of stats.

Glaives of Wisdom (W , W*)

This is Silencer's orb effect and main source of damage.It allows him to add pure unmitigated damage to his attacks based on how much intelligence he has. At max it is 75% of his intelligence as bonus damage.

Thoughts: Like most orb effects, this will be your method of lane harassment and easy last hits. Especially against melee opponents, just make sure to not auto cast (right clicking the spell, or default alt+w) in the early stage of the game. When manually cast you will not draw creep or tower aggro. The opposite is true for auto-cast, not to mention you won't have the mana pool to support it.

Last Word (E , L*)

Causes any unit within the 750 unit range of this aura to become silenced after it finishes casting a spell.

Thoughts: The important thing about this skill is that if any hero dies within the aura's range Silencer will steal one intelligence from them. If Silencer is killer he will steal two intelligence. Though if you've recently played Pudge, unlike flesh heap this skill is not retro-active. Meaning it won't count kills before you had the skill.

Global Silence (R , E*)

Stops all enemies on the map from casting spells. This goes through magic immunity.

Thoughts: This is huge in team fights, at max level it will silence all enemy units for 5 whole seconds globally. This means if you're in top lane and enigma has your team in a black hole bottom, you can put an immediate stop to it. Once you have it skilled keep an eye open for teammates needing your silence to net a kill or escape death.

*Legacy keybinds

Skill Builds

This is where you'll have to adapt to the situation at hand.
I'll put a cookie cutter build up for carry and support and mention what factors may change the way you skill. Try to avoid getting a skill to you see your lane opponent so you can decide what you'll need.

Carry Silencer
Level 1: Glaives
Level 2: Stats
Level 3: Glaives
Level 4: Stats/Last Word
Level 5: Glaives
Level 6: Global Silence
Level 7: Glaives
Levels 8 – 10: Stats
Levels 11: Global Silence
Levels 12 – 15: Last Word/Stats
Level 16: Global Silence

This is pretty easy to remember in game. Skill glaives any time you can, at 6, 11, 16 make sure to get your global silence. Then get attribute boost whenever you can't skill glaives or global silence. Lastly get ranks of last word when you can't skill glaives, Global Silence, and Attribute boost. This will leave Curse of the silent for the last four levels 22-25.

Or a priority put simply Global Silence>Glaives>Stats>Last Word.

Now what would make you deviate from this?

First and foremost as I mentioned earlier, Last Word is not retro-active. So getting 1 rank around level 2 or 4 can be helpful in the long run. Depending on how soon you think you'll be in range of a kill, it can net you some free intelligence.

Secondly I need to touch on the complete neglect of curse. This skill really only shines early on when mana is much harder to come by. Also against certain opponents the spell is virtually useless (venomancer wards come to mind). While those with expensive spells 3-4 ranks of curse can win you the lane (Tiny, Leoric, Sven). Against some less observant opponents, it may be worthwhile to get 1 rank of curse in the laning phase. If they are not paying attention, they may assume you have been ranking it up and will waste spells to remove the curse.

Why stats early?
I think the easiest way to explain would be to look at what makes Silencer weak and fragile. (Low health and armor) And what makes Silencer do more damage. (Intelligence) It also helps to think that in total there are 10 levels of attribute boost, a total of +20 to all 3 attributes. The equivalent in items would be 2 Blessed orbs, which would cost you 4200g. The idea is help silencer get those stats sooner to survive the early game and take over mid to late game.

Support Silencer:
Level 1: Glaives
Level 2: Curse
Level 3: Curse
Level 4: Last Word
Level 5: Curse
Level 6: Global Silence
Level 7: Curse
Levels 8 – 10: Last Word
Levels 11: Global Silence
Levels 12 – 15: Glaives/Stats
Level 16: Global Silence

This is a lot more flexible, Generally speaking. Use the curse for easy harass, glaives as an orb so you can avoid aggro. Once you get a feel for the hero in this role, you'll quickly be able to discern which skills will be needed at the lower levels. It can be very easy to get picked off, so watch your positioning and don't over extend.

Laning Silencer
Before we cover even your starting items, we need to discuss laning. Try to lane either solo or with a hero who needs little farm to be effective. Examples of heroes for a Silencer dual lane might be: Tide Hunter, Sand King, Trent Protector, or Omni Knight. Of course plenty of others will work, though you ideally want solo experience. If you're supporting, find a partner that compliments your curse and is strong even at early levels. Heroes like Chaos Knight come to mind, because you can't remove curse of the silent when you have a chaos bolt in your brain.

If you get your solo lane, play carefully. You're quite the glass cannon through most of the game, similar to playing shadow fiend. You don't excell at ganking, so you may need to remind your team that not all mid heroes are built to gank. Its unlikely you'll have rune control or buy a bottle. Glaive is rather inexpensive and if you don't need curse you'll have plenty mana to spare.

As with shadow fiend, send yourself  tp around 6 minutes (first night). If you're against a more gank oriented mid, this is when he'll try and get some sidelane kills. Warn your teammates if your lane opponent is missing, and use the TP if there is a dive or you see an oppurtunity for easy kills.

As you move into the mid game, farm when you can but start to force teamfights when you have ultimates off cooldown. Global Silence after a Tide Hunter Ravage will win most team fights at this stage assuming even numbers and decent farm. If you win a fight try and push a tower. As with almost any hero, avoid getting picked off alone and towards this stage you have to be wary of smoke ganks.

 

 

Starting items

Solo lane/dual lane (taking creep kills): Tangos, 3 Branches, Circlet, Salve

Note: if you think you'll be going against 2 heroes as a solo opting for more regen may be a good idea.

Support: 2 Tangos, 3 Branches, Clarity, Wards/courier

 

Core items:

Three main items come to mind for both builds. (Support/Carry)

Power Treads, Force Staff, Mekansm.

 

(The support build can justify grabbing arcane boots if the team needs it.)

Why these items?

The Treads give Silencer extra hp if he needs it or intelligence for a small damage boost. With the ability to toggle what is needed at the moment. (Both will probably have them defaulted to Strength.)

The Force Staff gives Silencer a much needed escape and some intelligence to boot. The item has a lot of versatility which is just what Silencer needs.

The Mekansm even if your going to carry can provide you with some much needed survivability. It gives 5 to all stats, 5 armor, 4 Hp regen and on use heals for 250HP in an area around you. Just make sure you don't already have a teammate building one, as its generally a waste to have two.

Luxury Items:
These are pretty straight forward. If your carrying you'll want to consider.

BKB, Orchid, Sythe of Vise, and Shiva's guard. All Can help you dish out more damage,
while maintaining some surviability or utility. 

If you're supporting you may decide to get:

Pipe, Eul's, or Ghost Scepter.

Notable Situational Items:
The number Items you can list is too large so I'll cover a few I find interesting. That can be used by either build.

Drums of endurance- This item provides a solid chunk of stats for the price. The aura and benefit to a team fight make it a valuable asset to any team. Its also the reason I recommend a circlet to start. You can get the bracer if you decide you need some more strength early on.

Ghost Scepter- Its mentioned above for the Support build, but its important to note that while activated. You can manually cast your orb on anything that isn't magic immune. This can help you against auto attack based enemy heroes.

Hand Of Midas - For a 1900 gold price tag this item if built early can help you really take an early lead. Provided the enemy is letting you have as many creep kills as you want, and your other lanes aren't being decimated. If you're going to go for it, get it quick before 8-9 minutes at the latest.

Dagon - Lastly and probably most controversially. I mention dagon because if you opt to make a null talisman out of your circlet its an easy upgrade. Just make sure to avoid upgrading past level 1 under most circumstances its a waste of gold. It can help you secure even more Intelligence with last word, though your teammates might not see it that way.