- Tittle: Most Concise Drow Ranger Guide
- Author: Melderv
Here we explain my perspective about Drow Ranger.
I play Drow Ranger rather sparingly nowadays, because I find it hard to farm effectively with her and to participate in clashes compared to other carries. However, it doesn't require a very skilled player to make her strong, and so we this guide is for teaching others how to make the most of that strength, how to add a little more, and to clear up a few things about her.
Here are Drow Ranger's major points:
Map Awareness: Drow Ranger is a hard carry. Hard carries function best at late game, and to keep them at bay, they are often the target of early ganks because of being fragile and weak. Good map awareness is required to keep an eye on every important thing happening all around the map, because Drow Ranger is susceptible to a large amount of death threats.
Attributes: Drow Ranger's gains are average, but she makes up for it with Marksmanship. Like I said earlier, Marksmanship gives her a significant boost each time she levels it up, so getting it is key to overpowering your enemies even with little items. Her attack range is one of the farthest (625) and movement speed is average. Her Armor is average as well as her base damage. She also have full night vision, compared to other Heroes (1800 instead of 800).
Keep in mind, I'm not trying to be redundant with the word average, it just is the word I use to gauge strength. Others are: poor, below average, above average, excellent.
Items: Drow Ranger is item dependent. She is not overly item dependent, but she cannot survive without items. She is an average item dependent carry. Unlike Soul Keeper, who cannot live without items, she manages to retain part of her power using Marksmanship, a quality unique to this Hero.
Gold and EXP: Drow Ranger does not farm easily. She has no AoE spell to clear creeps, nor does she have any burst damage skill (like Dwarven Sniper's Assassinate) or a map control skill (like Spectre's Haunt). Take note that I can only compare her to other hard carries. She relies solely on your last hitting skills and attack damage to hastily kill creeps/waves.
Skills: Her Frost Arrows is considered one of the best slows. She also has one of the longest silences, as well as being AoE. She has a mediocre aura, and a "steroid" Ultimate. All lead to her being a carry that can usually gank (with her slow and night vision) and counter spellcasters (with her Silence).
Here are a few reasons why to pick Drow Ranger for your games:
- Farming Skill: You can keep on farming for a set period without going off-track. This is very important. The key words are "set period" and "off-track", the two weaknesses of most players who carry. Some players tend to overfarm, so to speak. All that they do is farm the entire game without contributing much to the team. That's bad. The other thing is not farming enough. They are easily distracted by the urge to kill or gank, and do not have the proper mindset to farm.
- Raw Power: You like Heroes that boast great strength. Drow Ranger will often be on the limelight for being exceptionally strong. They know you can be that strong, but still, she will hurt a lot and her presence will make a difference.
- Gamebreaking: You like Heroes that make a difference. One of her abilities that do that is Silence. A 6-second silence for the team is, simply, gamebreaking. This is one of the skills that matter. Another is her Ultimate, Marksmanship, which provides an insane amount of raw agility to her, and a percentage to other ranged units.
PLAYSTYLE
Hard Carry: A hard carry needs to farm for, again, a set period of time without going off-track. Set an amount of time and dedicate that time to farming. Looking for open lanes, killing neutrals as you move, avoiding ganks, and participating in won battles are key to giving you the farm you need. But do not overfarm. Once you reach your core, stop being dedicated to farming and participate in team fights.
NOTE: Do not choose Drow Ranger if you have two (or even just one) allied Heroes competing for your farming. All of you will fail.
Ganker: Part of Drow Ranger's presence can be devoted to ganking. Why let an amazing slow go to waste? Why not use her Silence? These are questions I ask newer players, and they can only answer with "damage". Well, not everything must be about damage, my friends.
DROW RANGER'S SKILLS
Frost Arrows
Induces a freezing effect to the hero's attacks. Each attack slows the enemy's movement rate.
- 1. Mana 12 / Cooldown 0 / Duration 1.5 seconds on Heroes (7 on creeps) / Slows movement speed by 11%
- 2. Mana 12 / Cooldown 0 / Duration 1.5 seconds on Heroes (7 on creeps) / Slows movement speed by 24%
- 3. Mana 12 / Cooldown 0 / Duration 1.5 seconds on Heroes (7 on creeps) / Slows movement speed by 37%
- 4. Mana 12 / Cooldown 0 / Duration 1.5 seconds on Heroes (7 on creeps) / Slows movement speed by 60%
- Frost arrows are Orb Effects and Buff Placers.
- The slow will not be increased by successive casts, only prolonged.
Silence
Stops all enemies in a target area from casting spells.
- 1. Mana 90 / Cooldown 13 / Duration 3 seconds / Disables all enemies hit from casting spells.
- 2. Mana 90 / Cooldown 13 / Duration 4 seconds / Disables all enemies hit from casting spells.
- 3. Mana 90 / Cooldown 13 / Duration 5 seconds / Disables all enemies hit from casting spells.
- 4. Mana 90 / Cooldown 13 / Duration 6 seconds / Disables all enemies hit from casting spells.
- Does not stop opponents from using items.
- Disables Permanent Invisibility.
Trueshot Aura
An aura that gives all allied ranged units bonus damage based on your agility.
- 1. Gives 16% of your agility as damage.
- 2. Gives 20% of your agility as damage.
- 3. Gives 24% of your agility as damage.
- 4. Gives 28% of your agility as damage.
- Can be toggled on and off to affect creeps or not.
- Creeps will only be affected if they are within 900 aoe of Drow Ranger
Marksmanship
The Ranger's accuracy has increased. Bonus is removed if there are nearby enemy heroes within 375 aoe.
- 1. Adds 40 Agility
- 2. Adds 60 Agility
- 3. Adds 80 Agility
SKILL BUILD
- 1. Silence
- 2. Frost Arrows
- 3. Frost Arrows
- 4. Trueshot Aura
- 5. Frost Arrows
- 6. Marksmanship
- 7. Frost Arrows
- 8. Silence
- 9. Silence
- 10. Silence
- 11. Marksmanship
- 12. Trueshot Aura
- 13. Trueshot Aura
- 14. Trueshot Aura
- 15. Stats
- 16. Marksmanship
Justification: Silence is the skill that will keep drow rapists at bay during those annoyingly expected tri-lane first blood attempts. I always take it as my first skill, but only because a 11% movement speed slow for one person is not going to make any difference. It's like Venomancer's Poison Attack. Ahh, so now you remember how shitbrix the slow is by itself.
What happens next is we completely forget about it until we reach Level 8, where we can prolong the duration of the silence during those vital team fights. Nifty.
Frost Arrows is taken second but maxed out first. This is one helluva slow considering not all people feel the need to buy a Boots of Speed when everybody's Level 7 but you do, and well, a 60% movement slow and chasing becomes much more efficient. Not only are you going to force them to at least consider buying BoS when they can't escape from you and your supposed lane partner, but... okay, that's pretty much all you're doing.
I'll discuss Orb Walking with this skill later on in General Strategy. Just remember that Frost Arrows overrides every other orb you give Drow Ranger. Which means that you do not slow when you add Lifesteal. I'll be talking about this also on General Strategy.
Trueshot Aura is taken at Level 4 when it is most rewarding. For 16% more damage based on your agility at Level 1, all the other upgrades are obviously worth taking only later in the game (for 4% more each).
Marksmanship gives you the biggest boost in AGI in the game from just one skill. It makes no sense not to take it. You'll particularly feel it the most during Level 6, when you have piss-poor AGI at the beginning.
Keep in mind, 1 point of AGI gives Drow Ranger: +1 attack speed, +1 damage, and 0.14 Armor. 7 points of AGI gives her a full 1 point of Armor.
ITEM BUILDS
Power Treads is the main item for Drow Ranger over all the Boots (more on this later). The biggest reason is the additional STR and the attack speed early on. She can also switch to AGI when farming, and if lacking a little mana, to INT to cast that vital Silence. No other Boots would provide this benefits in one go. As usual, other Boots are discussed in the "Which Boots?" tab. Don't keep it on AGI all the time. Lothar's Edge is your main escape mechanism and ganking mechanism. Yes, it is easily countered by True Sight, which I assume organized games would have. However, you have no innate escape mechanisms in you and there are no other items that would give what she wants in one buying: additional damage and escape mechanism. Yes, the raw damage from this item is not manipulated by Trueshot Aura, but the item still holds as one of her core items. Wraith Bands gives Drow Ranger an early boost on AGI and damage. The most you should get in one game is two. Never go beyond that amount. Why? It would delay your build, and you would not have enough space in your inventory for a life-saving Scroll of Town Portal. Magic Wand, although sometimes it would delay, should be your survival item throughout the game. You even build it first (see Build Progression). While you'll be unlikely to be participating in many team clashes, you're not likely to use the charges either because of your low manacost spells (12 for Frost Arrows; 90 for Silence). The idea is to store the charges until you reach the maximum and keep them with you in the event that you're ganked to save your life if necessary. Scroll of Town Portal should be with you at all times. Remember to visit the side shops when you can if you didn't have enough money to buy it from your base.
Which Boots?
Here we see how I justify Power Treads over the other types.
VS 
Boots of Travel is only gotten on very long games (60 minutes upwards). You don't have a wave-clearing skill to make use of this to farm efficiently (unlike other Heroes such as Tinker, Morphling, Shadow Fiend, etc.). You only get it on long game to get around the map once your attack speed is high enough and the only thing you need then is map control. Phase Boots is not meant for Drow Ranger. Why? She has Frost Arrows, which would disable Phase if manually-casted. It would be perfect if she had a disabling skill that could be activated before using Phase (if I had to cite just examples, Battery Assault, Rot, or other slow skills). She doesn't; she has Frost Arrows. Keep in mind, though, that auto-casting Frost Arrows does not cancel Phase. Arcane Boots would solve Drow Ranger's non-existent mana issues. Okay, so you would run out of mana every now and then by using Silence too much, but that doesn't justify forking over 1000 gold to buy an Energy Booster for this item. First, you can't use it for other items when you disassemble it. Second, well, Drow Ranger isn't that big on mana anyway.
Extensions
Black King Bar eventually meets any hard carry. More stuns will be focused on you, more burst damage nukes will be aimed at you. This removes some of them. Another reason is that Drow Ranger needs to attack to be functional, and believe me, her attacks hurt. This item is pretty much self-explanatory, though.
Sange and Yasha's slow stacks fully with yours. It's a little short on AGI compared to Manta, but it makes up for it with a little bit of STR. Long story short, while this may not save you from an extra nuke, this might just help you net a kill you otherwise wouldn't get. Do consider it if you're playing cheap and easy.
Manta Style, while suffering a recent nerf to ranged Heroes, still increases your DPS by a significant amount. If you're not worried about being focused too much, or you have a great initiator, you can opt for this item instead. It gives your increased movement speed to chase, and more stats for survivability, not to mention Mirror Image.
The Luxury Items
The Butterfly. What should I say? Just don't get two of them.
Monkey King Bar is preferred over The Butterfly if you're facing tanks like Pandaren Brewmaster (Drunken Haze, Drunken Brawler), and carries like Tinker (Laser) and Phantom Assassin (Blur), or other Butterfly holders. True Strike will make it easier for you to fight them. Don't opt for this item unless you're doing the HotD build since it doesn't stack with Frost Arrows.
Buriza-Do Kyanon is the item to get if your team has kept the opponent carry at bay and True Strike is not needed. The Critical Strike, even from just Crystalys, should be very beneficial considering your high attack damage. Not only that, these items were recently buffed to have an even higher Critical Strike chance (6.72).
Assault Cuirass is another item to get if you like your attack speed. However, it adds nothing to your damage, but just amplifies it. Since you're not allowed to get Stygian Desolator, this item might be of good use. Note its expensive components, though.
While I might not think of Drow Ranger as a good Heart of Tarrasque holder, since The Butterfly is much better, she can get if she has already bought The Butterfly. What kind of pubstomp is this?
GENERAL STRATEGY
Side Lane
Starting Items: You hardly need mana consumables at this time, nor ever, so you'll be getting a Healing Salve to prolong your stay in the lane instead. A quick tip when going to the side lanes is to avoid buying things that you can buy at the goblin shops. Also, this build leaves you with enough money to buy a Magic Wand recipe (not the Scroll of Town Portal) should you want to build it first. It would need only 200 gold more to finish it up.
Goals: Get Power Treads, stay alive. Unless you have a competent lane partner, just focus on last hitting. Make it your priority. Your attack animation should be quite slow for now. What you should ask for in the very beginning is a baby-sitter (a healer, supporter) that would not compete for last hitting and keep you alive during your laning phase.
Farming: Last hitting should be your top priority. Not only is it hard enough to make up for lost time due to dying or doing something else, you don't even have any skill to help you with that problem.
Pulling: If you're taking the pull lanes, pull if you're both ranged, and make it fast. Otherwise, stay to defend if your friend is melee.
Sent-Top/Scourge-Bottom: This one's harder since you cannot pull back your wave nearer to the tower, and they will likely pull them back towards theirs. Never stray too deep into the enemy territory. You won't survive an organized gank if you do. Just stay back and last hit.
Harassing: Orb-walking is possible with Frost Arrows. With a competent lane partner, you can gain a kill by slowing your enemies' movement speed and combining it with a stun or a burst slow is quite powerful. Remember to make harassing a low priority, and never forget your last hitting. Harass the melee Heroes to make them think twice about venturing into your range and to dominate the lane.
Wrap Up: Get your core items and start moving on to bigger creeps if you can. Farm open lanes and try to avoid ganks that involve too little allies. You risk yourself valuable time if you fail and die.
Clashes
Your main job is to kite. You cannot take dedicated 1v1 Heroes of equal strength such as Troll Warlord, Phantom Assassin, Slithereen Guard, and Murloc Nightcrawler. Unless you're significantly stronger, you will not win. Your job is to attack enemies from a distance and keep the enemy's attention off you.
Of course, this isn't going to happen in most cases. What you need to do to gain this benefit is to enter the battle fashionably late in order to determine the best positioning and to avoid deadly stuns. If the enemy has kept all their stun reserved for you, then they have already lost to your teammates.
Positioning: Drow Ranger should be placed on the farthest side of the clash. Why? You cannot place Drow in the middle, nor too near one end of the clash. She needs to distance herself from the enemy, remain unnoticed until too late. If you cannot help this, prioritize your targets.
Targets: Your targets are the most threatening targets. Doesn't matter whether he's a support or a carry, just focus your every attack on him, slowing him down and preventing him from being very motile. If BKB is an issue, just attack the unit. This is actually the same as in my Geomancer guide.
Breakdown: First, use Lothar's Edge at the dawn of the fight. Once your allies initiate, move to the farthest edge and attack the threatening targets.
If your allies are unable to initiate, stay back and keep your distance, but not too far. The key for this situation is to wait for the disables to come in. If the enemy has ventured too deeply without using their stuns, by all means, let your teammates in.
Second, break invisibility on the target. Shoot him down until he drops, and focus on your next threatening target. Kite them, that's your job.
Finally, catch any remaining survivors if you won the clash, or slow any chasers if you lost and try to stay alive.
Using Frost Arrows
Orb-walking: Orb-walking is the ability to attack your enemies and cancel your animation without drawing any form of aggro. Aggro is drawn in the moment the creeps/towers attack you because of attacking a Hero. This orb-walking ability is made available through the use of Frost Arrows, as manually casting Frost Arrows is the same as casting a spell, which in itself does not draw any aggro.
Another point is to be to able to move and attack while canceling your attack animation backswing, which I'll be discussing next. Essentially, orb-walking is canceling your backswing.
Auto-attacking: When is auto-attacking much more efficient than orb-walking? The answer is this: it depends on the human factor, and not the technical/mechanical factor.
Drow Ranger's frontswing (the amount of time required to actually attack) is 0.7 seconds. More attack speed lowers this time, allowing more attacks to be made. However, her backswing is 0.3 seconds. This is purely for cosmetics and does not involve your attacks at all. This is the time you can cancel. However, for example, getting, let's say, 100 more attack speed reduces this time to 0.15 seconds.
If you, as a human, could time it just right that you could cancel that animation still, then you can keep orb-walking. However, making many mistakes will actually result in less attacks being made, and auto-attacking is the safer option. As I said, it depends on the human factor.
Orb Stacking: Orb effects do not stack. Buff placers do not stack. That's it.
Magic Immune: Frost Arrows does not affect magic immune units.
Creep-slowing: Frost Arrows lasts 7 seconds on creeps. A way to make use of this is by manually casting Frost Arrows on a Meat Wagon/Glaive Thrower attacking your tower. They will attack significantly slower, dealing less damage overall to your structures.
Another minor use is to slow down the first creep of the enemy wave, delaying the others by a short time. But still, it's a use.
Edited by basicdotaguide.blogspot.com