Slardar Might Be the Answer to the Lifestealer Meta

The new meta is slowly finding the best patterns for each role, and Lifestealer has been a constant in the carry role despite the nerfs in patch 7.41a. A carry with built-in magic immunity is always a problem.

Team Liquid's offlaner, Marcus "Ace" Christensen, found the best way to deal with Lifestealer from the offlane by picking Slardar. Let's take a look at his approach and follow the pattern to find some alternative answers.

Slardar: Physical Damage, Control and Minus Armor

Ace's proposition is to take advantage of Lifestealer's low physical armor with a hero that can fight him. That comes in the form of Slardar, a bulky offlaner with high physical damage and armor reduction.

His video explains how pushing Naix off the lane can be a game-winning move. To accomplish that, you need to focus on having high sustainability and dealing with the support.

The positives of playing Slardar include giving your other cores more options (synergy with Pango mid in this case) and having a passive that gives you extra damage while ignoring magic immunity.

This means that you should look for three main characteristics in alternatives to Slardar:

• High physical damage output
• Built-in or item bound armor reduction
• Fast attack speed to be able to manfight

Possible Alternatives to Slardar

Considering that the meta is still unclear, let's focus on options and give less weight to hero win rates.

Templar Assassin

When we talk about high physical damage and armor reduction, the first heroine that comes to mind is Templar Assassin. She has natural defense against physical damage, high physical output and even built-in armor reduction.

She got a new innate that helps with sustainability and did not get nerfed in 7.41a or 7.41b. Most of the new meta is favoring physical damage, but somehow she has fallen off in the last couple of weeks.

Naga Siren

As an alternative to TA, we have Naga Siren as another hero that has been pushed into the core role. She has high physical damage output, a root that traps enemies for up to 5 seconds and built-in armor reduction.

Naga has two big extra advantages over TA: her Aghanim's upgrades. Her Shard makes it possible for Song of the Siren to turn battles around with HP regeneration and her Scepter makes it possible for Ensnare to target and affect debuff-immune units, which is very bad for Lifestealer.

Agility Cores With Desolator

Finally, without limiting myself to a specific hero, I believe that agility cores, especially carries, will be the main counter to Lifestealer. If they do not have built-in armor reduction, you can always buy a trusty Desolator.

We have already seen other videos from Ace himself praising the recent buffs to Phantom Assassin and saying that she might have jumped back into the meta with the changes in 7.41b.

Other options worth exploring include Troll Warlord and Phantom Lancer. Both heroes remain above 50% win rate, tend to face enemies head first and explore Lifestealer's weaknesses either by using illusions or by attacking faster while proccing bashes/ensnare.

Ever since Diffusal Blade was nerfed, Skull Basher seems like a pretty good alternative to heroes that attack faster such as Juggernaut or Slark and might be a way to build your own "fake Slardar" against Lifestealer.

READ MORE: Dota 2 Patch 7.41b Nukes Meepo

Featured Image Source: Valve