Night Hound

[TheJoo]

Guide To Night Hound

Table Of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Pros and Cons of Night Hound
3. When to choose
4. Hero Overview

4a. Skills
4b. Skill Build
4c. Item Build
4d. Items you shouldn't get
4e. Possible items

5. Night Hound on the Mid Lane

5a. When to choose to play Night Hound mid

6.Playstyle
7.Friends & Foes of Night Hound

7a. Friends
7b. Foes

8.TL;DR

Introduction

Night hound is a strong melee carry hero with good ganking potential. He is mainly known for his invisibility and tendancy to steal kills with pounce(). However, he is able to hit hard with little items, and has a fantastic wide radius silence ability that can easily catch enemies off guard.

Pros and Cons of Night Hound

+Great mid and late game, although a bit lackluster in the early game.
+Good at chasing enemies.
+Can take any lane, even mid!
+Pounce can be used to escape enemies if an ally is near!
+Very high base armor and agi gain.
+Decent strength gain for an agi hero.

-Quite easily countered with wards/dust/eye.
-Completely useless without farm!

When to choose

Now, i said that night hound is a good carry hero. However, he will easily be outcarried by the likes of The Madman, Scout, Sand Wraith, etc. If you decide to play him, i would suggest to play him if you have a strong carry/semi-carry who plays mid (Wretched Hag, Soulstealer, etc.) , since his carry potential isn't strong enough to be the only carry on the team. If you want to play him alongside a harder carry (Madman, etc.) you can always place him mid (Information on playing mid to come.) I would suggest not placing him mid against a different mid who is melee (Pebbles, Deadwood, etc.) since these mainly have a better base damage than you and can beat you to the last hits. When mid, he is best placed against a squishy mid, and counters Hag and Valkyrie well with the silence cloud. If picked up, night hound should always be picked up last, allowing for no counter picks, such as pestilence.

Hero Overview

Base HP:473
Base Mana:182
Base Armor:6.4
Base STR:17
Base AGI:24
Base INT:14


STR/AGI/INT Gain: +2.0/+2.9/+1.3

Observations

His base armor is by far the highest in the game, giving a 27% damage reduction from level 1. His STR gain is quite good, and his agi gain is great. However, his int gain is fairly awful, which damages his early game since his skills are not mana intensive, but still cost quite a bit of mana.

Skills

Smoke Bomb

Observations

As you level it up, the radius increases minimally and so does the miss chance. It always lasts the same length at each level, however. Although Night Hound does not have a hard disable, this is almost as good: It silences, slows and causes the victim to miss a certain % of the time (70% at level 4.) The player in the cloud is practically gimped, unless the person owns a Savage Mace (removes the miss chance) or a Shrunken Head. This is what makes Night Hound who he is, without this skill he would be near useless. This gives him fantastic teamfight presence and is also great for ganking.

Skill Range & Radius Indicators

Cast Range

Level 1

Level 4

Pounce

Observations

As you level it up, the damage increases by 30 each time, but significantly, the cooldown decreases by 5 seconds each time, eventually lowering to only a 5 second cooldown. This skill is infamous for being great at killstealing, but is best used for night hound to chase with. With a 5 second cooldown, it is very hard to get away from Night Hound since he can just jump on you again every 5 seconds. This skill can also be used to jump on allies, remember this as it may save your life! Also note that it has 700 range: This is slightly longer than an average ranged auto attack, such as one from Hellbringer. It is also a good last hitting tool, but be careful when using it like this before level 6, you won't be able to escape with it because it has a long cooldown in the early levels.

Skill Range Indicator

Backstab

Observations

As you level it up, it adds more damage to your backstab: from 25% AGI up to 100% AGI, increasing in 25% each time. This is Night Hound's steroid skill, the skill that makes him carry. It also buffs his damage greatly early game, a level 10 Night Hound with only Steamboots(AGI) and two soulscream rings will backstab for 168-172 damage and pounce for 290 damage as long as you get the backstab with it. That amount of damage is fantastic early game, especially seeing that you can easily get 2 or so hits in while your victim is still inside your cloud. The damage boost also makes it easier to last hit, especially when paired with a Logger's Hatchet.

Invisibility

Observations

Not much to say about this, other than the fade time decreases as you level it up (3 seconds down to 1.5.)

Skill Build

1:Pounce
2:Smoke Bomb
3:Pounce
4:Backstab
5:Pounce
6:Invisibility
7:Pounce(Maxed Out)
8:Backstab
9:Backstab
10:Backstab(Maxed out)
11:Invisibility
12:Smoke Bomb
13:Smoke Bomb
14:Smoke Bomb(Maxed Out)
15:Stats
16:Invisibility
17-25:Stats

Reasons

Since the patch a while ago where runes don't spawn at 2:00, always take pounce first incase the opposing team tries to gank you in the forest: as long as an ally is in range, you'll be able to escape with Pounce. Pounce should always be maxed first, since the cooldown decreases significantly each level, on top of dealing more damage. This not only helps you deal more damage, it also allows you to save yourself on more occasions, and be able to chase better.
It is more useful to level Backstab and leave Smoke Cloud at level 1, since increasing the level in Smoke Cloud does not increase the duration, only the miss chance and radius. Backstab also makes it easier to last hit.

Item Build

Since Backstab scales with AGI, the build will focus mainly on getting items that give good amounts of AGI.

NOTE:This is for both mid and sidelane mainly. Some things will be cleared up in the section for playing mid.

Starting 603 Gold:

// OR /4x /OR if you really think you need it, ///3x.

If you picked up a buckler, you should upgrade it to an as quickly as possible, it will help you in lane and give you some extra agi for backstabbing!

Now, you have a choice:

CORE

Always pick up a :PowerSupply: because it is a fantastic item. It always saves you in those clutch moments, and is great for your mana problems. Quickly build your :Steamboots: after.
You could also/either pick up a :RingOfTheTeacher: or :Bottle: if you think you need extra mana,Ring of the teacher especially if you want to pick up an :AbyssalSkull: later.

Power Supply + Steamboots = 546 Gold + 1450 Gold = 1996 Gold

After this, pick up a . This item is fantastic on NH, giving a big amount of AGI, some extra damage with mana burn, fixing his mana problems a little, AND don't forget the purge actitve. Purging someone will allow you to keep someone in your cloud for longer, or it can just be used as a slow for escaping victims. It is also a great counter to heroes such as and , since it can be used to purge their buffs (Dark Blades, etc.) Remember, it can also be used to purge yourself of , and also 's ult. If you get it quick you should go on a gank spree quickly, since your damage will be amazing (level 15 Night Hound with steamboots(AGI), two soulscream rings and a nullfire blade backstabs for 240-246 damage, while attacking at 1.33333 attacks per second.) NOTE: With the 2.30.0 update, always upgrade your Nullfire Blade AFTER you have used all the charges. (Upgrading it, although giving more mana burn and agility, will increase the cooldown on Nullfire's active quite dramatically.) Upgrading it will give you infinite charges, allowing you to spam the slow.

Nullfire Blade = 3300 Gold

Total price for core: 5296 Gold

MID - LATE

After this, lots of items are available to you.
If there are lots of stuns, pick up a (3900 Gold)

If there are lots of single target abilities(think:Succubus' skills), pick up a . (4850 Gold)
Against another carry? (if one of your stingy teammates won't buy it) and/or (Splitting a frostburn works nicely since works well with Night Hound, since the illusions can backstab. It is also good for checking if they have runes and the like - send in an illusion, if they notice it, don't run in! Also, it will purge your debuffs, so you can use it to remove dust from yourself, etc: but be careful, if you use it while you have DD or Haste activated activating Geometer's Bane will purge that too!)
(2050 Gold OR 6200 Gold)
Enemy building Wingbow? . (5400 Gold)

is also a fantastic item, for obvious reasons. However, i would only buy this late game since Night Hound is not a great farmer, and on top of that it doesn't give much survivability bonuses (other than the evasion, but that is only for physical damage.)

If you don't know what to buy, pick up a . It is always a safe bet to pick up a frostburn, since it increases your damage while also giving you some needed health.

Items like Frostburn & Nullstone can be picked up right after your core, but Riftshards, Wingbow, Savage (Unless Wingbow has already been farmed on an opposing carry), Abyssal Skull & splitting the Frostburn should be done after picking up Shrunken Head (unless you really don't need one), mainly because of the hard build ups and/or expense of these items (other than abyssal of course, but you won't need lifesteal until very late game.)


Whatever you chosen, i would nearly always pick up and a , since Riftshards works great with Pounce and Backstab, and a shrunk is needed almost every game.

Full Inventory (Frostburn pickup):
Steamboots + Nullfire Blade(Level 2) + Frostburn + Shrunken Head + Riftshards + Wingbow = 1450 Gold + 4150 Gold + 4400 Gold + 3900 Gold + 5500 Gold + 5600 Gold = 25000 Gold

LUXURIES/SITATIONAL/GOOD ITEMS FOR NIGHT HOUND

Riftshards, Frostburn, Frostwolf's Skull, Wingbow, Savage Mace, Geometer's Bane, Symbol Of Rage, Abyssal Skull, Nullstone, Shrunken Head, Nullfire Blade

Items you shouldn't get

: Come on, you don't have the health for this.
: Not terrible, but there are better items. Stacking agi is best.
: You don't need this.
: No. You don't need the chain lightning..

Possible items

: It's nice to have that extra attack speed, plus this will give you a ridiculous amount of armor. I'll say it's better to be picked up on a teammate.
: This item is half decent on Night Hound, because he ends up attacking fairly fast with his agi gain.The problem about this item is, is that it does the same job as Nullfire Blade (ganking tool), but it does no where near as much DPS, and is based on luck. plus, you can't purge yourself. You can get it late game if you really like, but i wouldn't suggest it.
: If you're farming like a god, and can get it before 10 minutes, why not?

VS.

Steamboots
+10 Str/Agi/Int
+60 Movement Speed
+25 Attack Speed

Pros & Cons

• + Ability to change between str/agi/int. Can allow you to have that extra damage and attack speed when you need it, that extra int when you need to pounce, or extra strength when getting attacked.

• + Gives attack speed, what increases DPS and is more useful in the late game.In AGI form, will grant an extra +10 Damage(+20 on backstab), +10 attack speed and a small amount of armor.

• - Only gives +60 movement speed, what makes it harder for Night Hound to chase.

Ghost Marchers
+70 Movement Speed
+24 Damage
Phase Ability (+14% Movement Speed for 6 seconds, unitwalking)

Pros & Cons

• + The +70 MS it grants & the Phase ability really help with chasing.

• + It also grants +24 damage, what is useful early game.

• - It grants no strength to keep you alive, or agility to increase the damage of your backstabs.

Observations

Ghost marchers are more useful early game as you can catch up easily to slower enemies. Steamboots , however, are better mid - late game after you've gotten your Nullfire Blade, since this will slow down your victims and make it easy to get hits on them. All in all, boot choice is mainly about preference, and if you prefer Ghost Marchers, then go ahead.

Night Hound on the Mid Lane

Yes, that's right. Night Hound is actually a decent mid hero, exploiting his good ganking and harassing (pounce+cloud) ability early on. If you're going to go against a melee hero, pick up a Logger's Hatchet, 4x Minor Totem and some Runes. Otherwise, pick up a Hatchet, an Iron Buckler, and some Runes. You can pick up a Mana Battery and swap it out for the buckler if you're going to go against some mid lane skill spammer (Thunderbringer). Your objective with this is to get a ASAP. Once you have your bottle, start pouncing on your opponent then chucking a cloud on him. He will only be able to do one thing: Walk out of the cloud. While he walks out, just take a few hits on him and run before he can do anything to fight back. Continue this onslaught: you will likely force him out of the lane. Try to get Steamboots quickly, and atleast Marchers. once you hit level 6/7, if you pick up a good rune such as DD or Haste, go gank with it. Otherwise, continue to farm mid and beat your opponent!

After getting Steamboots, pick up a Nullfire Blade as quickly as possible. After you have picked up this, GANK, GANK, GANK. it is unlikely you will properly carry the game as night hound, especially if they have a harder carry than you. Nullfire Blade makes Night Hound from a mediocre ganker into a fantastic one.

Times to choose to play night hound mid

You should play night hound mid when:

• You counter the opposing mid (Doctor Repulsor, Wretched Hag, etc.)
• You have no other mid heroes/heroes that are more useful to put mid (obviously don't go night hound mid when you have a soulstealer etc.)

Times to definitley NOT play mid unless you really have to:

• Against a mid hero that is melee (Deadwood and Pebbles come to mind.) With pebbles and deadwood, they not only can last hit better, but your harass will do little damage to them with their large health pools. Keeper also comes to mind in that he is impossible to harass and is easily better at last hitting.
• They have a mid hero that counters you (Arachna)

Playstyle

The main thing about Night Hound is to exploit his invisibility. For example, your teammate is attempting to run away from a few people. You are nearby and can assist, if you do not think you can take them head on, place a silence cloud just so your ally has a better chance of escaping. In teamfights, it is best to allow another member of your team to initiate incase of invis wards or of the like. If you are against enemies such as succubus, it could be best to wait until she has started channeling her ult to use smoke bomb. If another member of your team initates, try follow it up with a smoke cloud: This will further gimp them and put them in a bad spot for the fight. Remember to check your opponents inventories often: They might have picked up a bound eye without you noticing!

Friends & Foes of Night Hound

Friends

The Babysitters

Nymphora

Will allow you to spam your pounce and cloud, while having a good stun to boot. Night hound's cloud also helps her get heal damage on victims.

Pollywog Preist

His hold will allow you to get in free backstabs, while the hex will allow you to get more hits in.

Demented Shaman

On top of being a fantastic harasser and heal combo, his entangle will allow you to get a few extra hits in and his Unbreakable will buff your damage nicely.

Glacius

The mana regen is always helpful and the slow will help you get hits in on enemies. Can also use ice imprisonment on people inside the cloud, making them stay in there for longer.

Slither

His Poison Spray and Toxicity keep the victim slowed, slowing them down to minimal movement speed while the cloud is on top of them, with both poison spray and toxicity debuffs applied.

Plague Rider

His 3rd ability will keep the lane back to make it easy to farm, while his shield will further increase your physical damage resistance, and his 1st ability is a good slow.

Hellbringer

His slow is specifically deadly and death boil causes great damage to boot.

These heroes all have great slowing capabilities on top of being good babysitters. Strong slows keep victims in the cloud for longer, while allowing you to hit them more.

The Teamfighters

Pharaoh

Placing a smoke cloud on top of a wall of mummies is devastating.

Bubbles

Staying inside Bubble's ult has you gimped and silenced, leaving causes you to be stunned and take magic damage.

Keeper Of The Forest

Stops people from casting while trapped by KOTF's ult.

Night Hound's silence cloud is a fantastic weapon for teamfights in itself, but these heroes synergize particularly well with it.

Foes

Pestilence

The "Hard Counter" to Night Hound, since his ult reveals you. Just remember to purge yourself/pop Geometer's Bane and it will be ok.

Arachna

Her ult reveals you, on top of the spider's slow & - attack speed debuff. Try and ask teammates to help you kill the spider, as it is hard to deal with early game. Do not play mid against her! Also note that she is better than you in practically every stage in the game. She'll be squishy in the mid game but in the late she will destroy you.

Keeper Of The Forest

With the new remake for KoTF, he is no where near as annoying as he used to be. Not only does he not have truesight eyes anymore, his ult has been shortened by 1 second at each level. He'll counter you with that, however, so make sure you have Nullfire/Geometer's Bane ready to counter.

Legionaire

Since his taunt will force you to attack him, he can take hits from the front and keep you out of invis for a while.He's really hard to deal with, especially when he gimps your damage while taunted.

Succubus

Smitten will drastically reduce your damage since most of your damage is based on your AGI, while her ult reveals you and so does mezmerize. Pick up Shrunken quickly against her, and possibly Nullstone.

Thunderbringer

His ult will reveal you, and so will his blast. A nullstone will help , but you'll still have the blast to deal with. It's best to try take him out early in a teamfight.

Rampage

If he is charging you, you are revealed. He also has time to ult you after he has finished charging, what leaves you helpless. You need a nullstone against him.

Corrupted Disciple

Conduit reveals you. Make sure you run from him if he uses it on you, or more likely pounce on a friend.

Blood Hunter

Fall under 40% health and you're revealed. Nothing much you can do about it: Abbysal could be a nice pick up here, as it will help you keep above 40% with lifesteal (or get you back above 40%.)

Scout

Electric eyes have truesight, so they reveal you. On top of this, Disarm, being the anti-carry ability it is, will gimp you.

Pollywog Preist

His hex and tongue will keep you revealed, and helpless. You might want to get a nullstone against him, and hope he doesn't pick up shrunken head!

Witch Slayer

His hex skill will give you the same problems as polly's hex. His stun isn't too much of a problem, but the silver bullet is, specifically early game. Try and keep him silenced!

Vindicator

Silences remove your invisibility, so remember that when you pounce on top of breaking invisibility, you'll have to wait an extra 4.5-6 seconds before being able to go back into invis, and an extra 3 seconds to use your cloud. Vindi's ult will straight up remove your invisibility, so be careful of that too! nullstone would be quite helpful against him.

All these heroes have some way to reveal invisible units or have a way to prevent night hound from going invisble.

:Hellflower: is a notable item that will counter you. It will silence, removing your invisbility. It is very unlikely someone would pick up a hellflower just to counter you, though.

Don't forget about Wards of Revelation,Dust of Revelation and the Bound Eye. These are the most obvious counters to Night Hound, with Dust being possible to counter.

One of the worst counters is Puzzlebox 3. You can purge that mauler, or kill it, but it's going to make your life hell while it's alive.

TL;DR

1:Choose sidelane or mid. Doesn't matter.
2:Pick up a Power Supply. Pick up a Ring Of The Teacher or a Bottle if you think you need extra mana.
3:Farm up Steamboots and a Nullfire Blade. Gank, or farm depending on the opposing team's carries.
4:Pick up a Frostburn and a Shrunken Head. Then pick up Riftshards and Wingbow for your final items.
5:Skill build is to pick up smoke bomb or pounce at level 1,then at level 2 pick up smoke bomb if you didn't. Max pounce first, then whatever.

(NOTE: TL;DR GUIDE IS NOT FOR SITUATIONAL GAMES, IT IS JUST A GENERIC BUILD.)

Thanks to:

[LN]Marach

Recommended lots of useful stuff for my guide!

Please leave feedback.

REPLAYS

Match 30944615 23/6/15. Mid Lane. I started really well, but the game went 4v5 early. It was a loss. (ALSO SHOWS WHY YOU SHOULD CARRY THEM TPS.)

[TheJoo]

Reserved.

[[E]Marach]

hey there mate . few suggestions:

- I think one of the requirements for a premium guide is that you have pictures for skills. here I guess it would be pictures depicting pounce skill range and smoke bomb range and radius on all levels. you said you'll be adding pictures, so I'm just mentioning it.

- picking Pounce instead of Smoke Bomb on lvl 1 is usually better if you're not rune ganking/checking as you can use it to more easily last hit some creeps earlier. you're hardly in a risk of dying in a lane when enemies are lvl 1.

- item build for the mid lane, and in general, should not be set in stone, but depend on what you expect to encounter. generally, you take iron buckler against ranged heroes to lessen the harass, hatchet against melee heroes to give you more last hits and mana battery against heroes that spam spells (like TB).

- I'd like to see more detailed descriptions of his skills and their usages along with optional mechanics part on them for those interested

- the guide could go more in depth and mention all synergies between the hero, his skills and various items. I'll mention several examples of that in my post. for example, mention that you can use nullfire blade to purge yourself from debuffs (e.g. slither's DoTs, pestilence's swarm, etc).

- you recommended nullfire blade as an item and mentioned its active, but it would be nice to provide a more detailed description of how to use it when ganking (smoke cloud + purge to keep the enemy long in your smoke cloud). it should also be noted and explained why nullfire blade becomes even a more appealing item when the enemy lineup has a hammerstorm, madman, the dark lady or hellbringer (did I miss any?).

- mention that activating the geometer's bane also dispells debuffs (and buffs as well) and that it's extremely useful if you're facing an arachna as you can kill the spider (arachna's ulti) very quickly by using your illusions (5 attacks to kill it). it's nice that you mention that illusions get backstab's bonus damage, but also note that it is reduced and that you manually have to order illusions to attack as they spawn stealthed/inactive iirc. also, illusions have the same fade time as NH.

- don't disregard phase boots so easily. many people swear by them (I personally prefer steamboots). activating them does break your invisibility, but you will mostly use it when chasing someone so it doesn't matter. when chasing and if you don't have an item that slows the enemy, AS is less important and phase boots could provide you with more hits on the enemy than steam boots while also giving you the phase effect. in any case, I suggest to not disregard an item based on a personal preference and if you're not completely sure it's useless. mention its pros and cons and allow the reader to try and decide.

- as NH is invisible, it is harder for him to stack the neutrals. you should mention that steamboots can be constantly switched to break his invisibility, which allows to stack the camps easily.

- although not maybe that legit of a build, but for completeness sake mention that multiple steamboots (on AGI) work quite nicely on NH as on a few other heroes (hammerstorm, predator, etc.)

- maybe I missed it, but I don't see iron shield, mana battery/power supply and ring of the teacher mentioned in (early) items. iron shield is a nice cheap upgrade from iron buckler in heavy harass lanes and its benefits are really nice. the same applies to mana battery and power supply. it's really nice on NH as pounce is a cheap skill mana wise and you might find yourself in a position where you need just one more pounce to make a kill or escape a death (don't forget that using mana battery or power supply breaks your stealth). ring of the teacher is a nice early item as it gives mana + armor aura along with some damage and can be built into abyssal skull later on.

there, I hope I have given a lot of tips that might help you make this guide even better

[TheJoo]

Cleaned it up a little, and added some new things.

[Lezrach]

Looking good, things you might add are
'friends of nighthound'
'foes of nighthound'
'core items'
'luxury/ situational'

Overvieuws. i saw you mentioned some aspects but if you look at premium guides. They mostly have a nice header and then the items (with large icons) on a row and explained why.

That will make the guide a lot more easy to read.

[[E]Myzzrym]

Didn't read all of it (I'll do it later) but for now:
- Tell us more about that smoke bomb. It's in many aspect "NH's true ultimate", it's one of the best skills ever. Silence, slow, miss % and visual hindrance? Yes please. That's why even against Eye / Wards / Dust or without decent farm, NH is in no way whatsoever out of the game - this cloud's placement is the key that makes or breaks the teamfight.
- Blood Chalice is totally "meh" and I wouldn't recommend it now that it has been nerfed to oblivion (or rather nerfed to what it was supposed to do in the first place). You are already squishy enough, and it will only make you more squishy. If you really need the mana, bottle is way better as it can give you a hefty health heal too. Furthermore, except if they placed revelation wards EVERYWHERE, you're pretty much safe roaming and looking for runes (more than anyone else without an escape mechanism getting in the river).
- Again and again, I'm asking for an in depth analysis of cloud usage in teamfights, ganks, whatever. That's almost the only reason he was sometimes picked in DotA competitive scene, so there is a lot to say about it. Preemptive placement, usage on towers, when to use it how to use it, I want to see all this.

Anyway, keep up the good work!

[[E]Marach]

also, check this extensive NH guide that has been here on forums for very long:
http://forums.heroesofnewerth.com/sh...ad.php?t=30426

it might give you ideas how to improve your guide.

[[E]TheMethos]

Also, in addition to what Marach said above, if you want it to be Premium you need to have replays with you doing what you said and showing it working. They don't need to be of YOU doing it but they need to be doing your build.

[TheJoo]

I would have had my first replay today but for some reason it didn't get recorded.. blah.

[[E]Marach]

I see you have added that 'Friends & Foes' section. I hope you'll read that extensive NH guide, but in the meantime it's time for more feedback!



'Friends' section could include all other pure support heroes, as that's what NH needs for a good laning phase. plus ranged heroes that are not strictly pure support, but can assure a good laning phase. I would mention the following that are missing and provide a little comment why they are good with NH: Voodoo Jester, Witch Slayer, Pollywog Priest, Hellbringer, Vindicator, Plague Rider, Slither.



to the 'Foes' section you could add all heroes that can reveal NH. and those that either have a disable or a silence, as both are extremely awkward to a NH player. I see you missed some, so here is the list I made with short explanations why a specific hero can present a problem to NH:

- Flint Beastwood: his ult reveals you while it's channeling (1.7 sec)

- Tempest: his ulti (Elemental Void) will reveal you and completely disable you for its duration.

- Scout: scout generally is a problem for NH. his Electric Eye reveals you and he can also activate it to silence you, which will make you unable to go invisible for a while. good scout will initiate on you with his Vanish/Flurry, then silence you and keep pounding on you all while having a chance to disarm you and even make a critical on you, not nice.

- Bubbles: his Song of the Sea spell silences you and he doesn't even have to see you to hit you with it as its AoE.

- Defiler: similar to Bubbles has an AoE silence spell (Grave Silence), but with a longer range and longer duration (although somewhat smaller radius).

- Vindicator: he has ulti and a passive which silence enemies. he doesn't even have to do anything, just be around when you use a spell (his passive).

- Balphagore: has a silence in his Demonic Pathogen spell

- Blood Hunter: long duration silence can be a real problem to NH, even if it increases NH's damage

- Pollywog Priest: two disables (Morph & Tongue Tied), you can't like that.

- Witchslayer: similar to Pollywog Priest, Witchslayer is a dangerous disabler with two disables and infamous ulti.

[Stokkolm]

^
And tell me a hero that is not countered if caught on tempest's ulti? LOL.
Vindicator nh counter? I'd say a slow squishy int with no stun or escape mechanism is a wet dream for nh.

Being revealed is not a problem once you are in a teamfight, so just because a hero can reveal you doesn't mean he's a counter. Keeper is by far the biggest enemy because he can reveal you anywhere on the map, preventing most of your ganks, and in addition his armor on allies will make your attacks deal less damage.

Pharaoh is trully a great ally, you can scout the enemy forest and when you see someone he will come with ulti+mummies. Deadly.

I liked your ghost marchers - steamboots comparison. Very true.

[[E]Marach]

ofc everyone is 'countered' if caught in tempest ulti, but many people don't know it reveals invisible units for example.

anyway, it's not about pure counters, it's about 'friends & foes' . although 'friends & foes' section is one of the less important ones in a guide imo, if you're gonna have it, then make it as complete as possible.

besides, specifying all heroes that have dangerous spells against NH in their arsenal can be beneficial to readers, especially those newer to the game. people, even higher skilled, are often not completely familiar with game mechanics and are not aware of all effects of spells. so I think stating it, even those obvious ones, cannot hurt .

If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.

btw I think you need more Assassin's Shrouds to be a true assassin. two doesn't seem enough .

[TheJoo]

Cleaned it up more and added gold values for items.

[[2LG]jay`t]

you need more fun pictures

like maybea dancing tempest with a hula hoop

guaranteed premium

[[KiO]Chriswuk]

This really helped me to play NH good.

[TheJoo]

Still looking for some feedback here, maybe some help on the design of the guide.

[TheJoo]

bump.
i have added skill range indicators for Pounce and Smoke Cloud, and have done some editing to some parts of the guide.

[Malphas]

Just wanted to say that as an avid NH player (75+ hours played as NH), I endorse this guide. Well written, very close to what I would have written as a guide for him.

Good work!

[TheJoo]

Thanks for the feedback. Do you think i've missed anything out?

[RejjeN]

looks good, don't play Night Hound myself but from what I've seen this seems valid.