Do you want to know about the Best Night Stalker Counters?
Balanar, the Night Stalker, despises the sun and becomes an extremely dominant offlane hero in the night. His disables and increased stats at night, allow him to be an exceptional Ganker and Initiator. In addition to this, an impressive strength gain and armor help him absorb damage and be the tank for his team. Making it important to learn about the Best Night Stalker Counters in Dota 2.
Night vision and enhanced scouting abilities provide him with the opportunity to set up good team fights and catch vulnerable enemy heroes. High base damage and good early game presence grant him the chance to make a lot of space for his carry. Besides this, his power spike at level 6 allows him to snowball without feeling threatened.
Though Night Stalker has immense potential to take over the game at night, his presence in the daytime is reduced. This is due to the fact that he has reduced vision as well as attack speed and movement speed. Along with this, a very small mana pool does not allow him to initiate fights continuously and cripples his laning phase.
Furthermore, his farm also suffers due to Night Stalker having a massive lack of AoE damage and creep clear. With no way to fight against spell immunity, it makes carrying the game unfeasible for Night Stalker. Relatively long cooldowns for some of his abilities also make it hard to lock down heroes for a long time.
Night Stalker
Night Stalker dominates the nighttime in the early game and thus makes it hard for the enemy to carry to farm efficiently. Consequently, this troubles the enemy team making it hard to delay the game to a later stage.
Balanar’s first ability, Void, is a single target spell that damages and slows enemy attack speed. Moreover, this ability also hinders enemy movement speed, making it easy for Night Stalker to catch up to them. It gains a boost in the night, slowing enemies and mini-stunning them for 0.1 seconds which can cancel channeled abilities.
Crippling Fear silences all enemies around Night Stalker with a radius of 375. This ability provides instant silence and can only be dispelled by spell immunity. Like most of Balanar’s abilities, this spell also improves at night with a silence duration of up to 7 seconds.
Night Stalker gets his vast improvement at night from Hunter in the Night, which is his third ability. With this ability, Night Stalker gains movement speed and attack speed. However, this spell only functions at night and leads to a below-average impact for him in the day.
Dark Ascension is Night Stalker’s Ultimate Ability and allows Night Stalker to bring instant darkness upon the map. An attack damage bonus of 150 and multiple improvements to his abilities makes this ability the crux of Balanar’s strength. During the 30 seconds that this spell is active, Night Stalker also flies and chases enemies down very effectively.
Counters
A potential to snowball and a great early game makes Night Stalker a daunting enemy to face. His increased capabilities in the night and killing aptitude are key in taking over the game. Consequently, it is essential to know the Best Night Stalker Counters in Dota 2.
Phantom Lancer
Phantom Lancer is an agility hero that surrounds his opposition with illusions. As a result, He makes it impossible for heroes without creep clear to escape. Likewise, Night Stalker also suffers against this and dies easily to him. Without any allies to support him, Balanar melts due to the immense damage output of Phantom Lancer.
Apart from this, Night Stalker’s additional movement speed is nullified by Spirit Lance and Diffusal Blade, which Phantom Lancer builds. With these skills, Phantom Lancer can help allies escape from Balanar, who often tries to catch enemies on the backlines.
Doppelganger and Phantom Rush are two abilities that supplement Phantom Lancer’s ways of escaping. With Doppelganger, he can easily dispel the slowness of Void or even run away if caught by Night Stalker. Phantom Rush allows him to reverse the effect of Void’s slow by sprinting towards any target he wishes.
Troll Warlord
With a versatile arsenal to output damage, Troll Warlord can switch between being melee or ranged. As a result, when faced against Night Stalker, Troll can attack from afar and root him with Fervor. The attack speed bonus from Fervor also allows Troll to overpower Night Stalker with overwhelming damage output.
Whirling Axes provides Troll with the opportunity to make Night Stalker miss his attacks. With this ability, the attack speed boost to Balanar at night is useless and makes Troll hard to bring down. Ranged Whirling Axes also gives him the chance to slow Balanar, which reduces the usefulness of his increased movement speed.
Along with all this, Troll also utilizes Battle Trance to crush him at any point in the game completely. With this ability, he also becomes unkillable for a short duration, making it impossible for Night Stalker to kill him even at night.
Oracle
Oracle has proven to be one of the best counters to Night Stalker with his long-range disables and saving capabilities. Using Fortune’s End, Oracle roots him into place, unable to execute his abilities in team fights. This allows Oracle to save allies from under Night Stalker’s grasp, reducing what Balanar can do in his limited ultimate.
Fate’s Edict grants Oracle the ability to disarm Night Stalker and renders all his additional attack damage and speed useless. Disarming him for up to 5 seconds and rooting him uses up a lot of Night Stalker’s limited ultimate. Not only this, but Purifying Flames provides a nuke damaging him and heals allies over time.
Like his other spells, False Promise empowers Oracle, allowing him to save any ally that Night Stalker targets. This ability fares extremely well against someone with low burst damage like Balanar. Along with this, a 10-second duration also wastes more time from Night Stalker’s short ultimate ability.
Naga Siren
Like Phantom Lancer, Naga Siren also uses her Mirror Image ability to surround Night Stalker with illusions. A lack of AoE abilities and a lack of escapes make it incredibly hard for Balanar to survive against the troubling moves of Naga Siren.
Two disables in the form of Ensnare and Song of the Siren prevent Night Stalker from initiating or catching enemies. Both these abilities let Naga control the flow or even stop the fight if her team is in danger. Ensnare functions as a long-range disable, granting Naga the power to lock down Night Stalker for up to 5 seconds.
Not only this, but Rip Tide reduces armor by 8 and allows Naga Siren to eliminate Night Stalker even faster. With item builds that can include Diffusal Blade, she slows him and deals insane damage with her illusions. Finally, she can also purchase Aghanim’s Shard, enabling her Song of the Siren to heal her allies.
With mostly consistent performance in all patches and being an irreplaceable initiator in the night, Night Stalker can function as an impeccable tank. All these attributes led to him being among the most popular heroes in the International 10. This makes him intimidating to face and can lead to an easy win if played right. Ergo, This article provides you will all the information you need on the Best Night Stalker Counters in Dota 2.
