Once you
have Shadow Blade (with PT, Aquilla, Wand) you want to start looking for
pick-offs.
Your first
kill should be easy because the enemies won’t know when exactly you have Shadow
Blade – it’s important not to show it before you actually gank someone. That’s
why you want to be in the jungle when the courier is bringing it to you.
The best
pick-offs are the enemy midlaner or
carry. With Slark, it’s not very hard to
find a good position as you move very fast with the Shadow Blade and the
enemies usually won’t have a sentry ward on
their safe lane. If the enemy doesn’t have an escape mechanism (for example SF,
Tinker, Sniper, Luna, Gyro), they’re very easy to kill at this point (usually a
good Shadow Blade timing is around 12-14 min) with some help from your
mid/offlane (depending on where you gank).
This time
frame is very important – if your first ganks are successful, you will gain an
insane advantage, you could even decide the outcome of the game if you snowball
hard enough. This is why it’s important that you’re able to assess the
situation – Can I gank the enemies or is it better to farm another item? Should
I search for prey myself or go with my teammates to take towers or find fights?
If you’re
not able to gank (the enemies are too fat or hard to gank heroes; they are
5-manning), it might be better to go back to farming and only fight when your
team wants to.
If your
enemies are very elusive (for example Storm, Puck, QoP, Weaver, etc.) and your
teammates can’t offer reliable disables, you might want to get an Orchid after
the Shadow Blade instead of searching for impossible kills, wasting your time.