Best Support heroes of Dota 2 patch 7.35b – Shadow Shaman

Shadow Shaman is one of the best support heroes in Dota 2 patch 7.35b.

His strength comes from the buffs he received in patch 7.35 but also from his good old toolkit, which allows you to disable enemy heroes for long durations and make space for your cores by pushing the lanes and sieging towers with Mass Serpent Ward.

What makes Shadow Shaman powerful

SS is an excellent support hero thanks to his abilities and laning prowess. His attributes increase at a rate of 2.3 / 1.6 / 3.5 per level and his level 1 damage is enormous. This means that he can easily win trades with enemy heroes and be annoying as hell in the first 5-10 minutes.

As soon as he has his level 3, he can gank and secure kills with ease. Hex will disable a target for 2s at level 1. Shackles will deal 75 damage and disable for 2.4s at level 1, while Ether Shock deals 140 damage to three different targets. Or you could simply put two points in Shackles. In that case, the ability would deal 150 damage and disable the target for 3s.

When you have a 5s disable at level 3, only a tanky hero with a good escape mechanism will avoid getting killed.

Shadow Shaman doesn’t need to wait very long to become impactful. And if you can buy an Aether Lens, which is an amazing item on this hero, you can get a lot done. All you need to do is use your Shackles from a long enough range. To avoid getting spotted, you can use smoke when you gank mid or top.

The goal is to be as unpredictable as possible and to avoid letting your carry in a vulnerable position. As soon as the enemy knows you’re trying to gank other lanes, your carry will be in danger and the opposite mid and safe lanes will play a lot more defensive.

A scenario in which you create the impression that you’re pulling creeps of stacking Ancients but in fact you’re ganking is ideal.

In team fights, try to use your ultimate in a way that forces the enemy team to waste many hits to kill your serpents. Even better, try to trap a key target or disable it for as long as possible. If you can do that, the enemy combo will be broken and your allies will have ample time to deal damage and position themselves in an advantageous way.

Header: Valve