Dota 2 shadow fiend builds

Making Scrappy Work:

There are a few important things to keep in mind in order to have success with a Scrappy strategy:

1. In the early game, you should get to (4) Scrappy as fast as possible – this gives you a good-enough frontline for the mid game. Getting to (6) Scrappy is possible, but it is not a must and you can comfortably play a (4) Scrappy draft with other synergies (usually Mages and/or Warlocks).
2. Your heroes (especially Clock and Tinker) receive a considerable upgrade on three stars. With a Scrappy strat, getting three-star upgrades is usually a higher priority than getting to lvl10 (or even 9 in some games).
3. The secondary synergies you want to aim for are Assassins, Warlocks, Mages, possibly Hunters. The reason is that Warlocks are easy to get (you already have Alchemist in your lineup) and make you even harder to kill, while Mages buffs your DPS the most – many Scrappy units deal considerable magic damage (the Inventor explosions are also magic). Assassins, on the other hand, work great with the (6) Scrappy survivability buff.

Best Scrappy Builds:

Scrappy is not the most flexible Alliance in the game. There are generally speaking a few viable build options (ordered from the strongest to the weakest).

1. Scrappy + Assassins, usually using the full (6) Scrappy bonus and a three-star Slark, ideally with MoM.
2. Scrappy + Mages, using the fact that the Inventor explosions deal very high magic damage, especially with Techies, the inventor Mage.
3. Scrappy + Warlocks, abusing the very high survivability of the lineup to out-last most opponents.
4. Scrappy + Hunters, using Scrappies as a tanky frontline and Hunters as a damage-dealing backline.

The build has two keys to success:

• The full (6) Scrappy bonus
• A three-star Slark with a good item (MoM, Moonshard)

The other heroes are interchangeable. For example, Shadow Fiend + Alchemist give good sustain and might save your Slark if he’s on low HP, but losing the SF in favor of a high-star level Phantom Assassin is certainly a more than viable option.

The build uses Scrappies as a durable frontline and Mages as a damage-dealing backline, but the main reason it works is the synergy between Mages and Inventors. Ther Inventor explosions (especially with the Chain Reaction from the Techies Ace bonus) deal extremely high magic damage, and it gets amplified by the Mage bonus resistance reduction.

It’s worth noting that your most important three-star upgrade is Tinker because on three-stars he has an extremely short cooldown on his Rockets and as a result – a very high magic damage output.

The option above is certainly viable, but ideally, with Inventors + Mages, you aim to get to lvl10. The reason is that this way you can include the full (6) Mage and (4) Inventor bonuses:

It’s important to keep in mind that the Inventor explosions happen in melee range. This means the build is much better versus clumped-up melee drafts (Knights, Warriors) compared to spread-out ranged drafts (Primordial/Mages, Hunters).

In the example build above it’s entirely possible to replace a two-star Timber or Clock with a Gyrocopter. You will lose the (4) Scrappy bonus, but Gyro deals additional AoE damage with his ultimate, which makes it worth it most of the time.

The idea with (6) Scrappy (4) Warlocks is the same as in Warlock/Warriors. The durable Scrappy synergy combined with the insane sustain from (4) Warlocks makes the draft almost impossible to kill. The benefit of Scrappy/Warlocks is that you can get the full bonus on lvl9, unlike the Warlock/Warriors who need lvl10.

The problem with these sorts of drafts is that they don’t have a clear source of damage. In this case, the two highest DPS heroes are usually Tinker and Shadow Fiend and they are your highest upgrade priority. Getting to lvl10 could be beneficial (you can include either Troll Warlord for the (2) Trolls bonus, or Gyrocopter for the (2) Deadeye if your Sniper is on three stars). That said, it’s not mandatory and you can invest in three-star upgrades instead.

Scrappy/Hunters is the least popular but still viable option. It’s possible to go for a (6) Hunter (4) Scrappy draft, but the (6) Scrappy option above is also viable. The main carry in this draft is Sniper. Getting him to three Stars and combining him with Gyro for the (2) Deadeye bonus is a great idea. Dota 2 shadow fiend builds The defensive nature of the (6) Scrappy draft also benefits the Terrorblade – he becomes much harder to kill and has more time to auto-attack and deal damage.