Drow Ranger is an agility carry who can deal a massive amount of damage from range, but is very squishy and vulnerable throughout the game. She requires excellent positioning, as she has little health, is very slow and deals less damage against melee heroes. Her ultimate doesn’t work when an enemy is nearby, which gives her little choice but to flee if anyone comes close to her.
Hurricane Pike is almost always a core item on her, as it can create enough space against an attacker for her to kite them around with the slow from Frost Arrows. Beyond this, her item build and skill build is quite flexible. In general, you should get agility items to capitalise on Precision aura, especially if she has many ranged allies. If not, she can get whatever items fits her needs. In general, Precision Aura is maxed first to help you and any ranged allies last-hit more easily, followed by Frost Arrows to kite enemies and get more kills. You should max Gust over Frost Arrows if you are playing against heroes with lots of mobility or spells which make them hard in some way to kill.
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[/column]Drow Ranger Skill Build
- Precision Aura
- Frost Arrows
- Precision Aura
- Gust
- Precision Aura
- Marksmanships
- Precision Aura
- Frost Arrows
- Frost Arrows
- Talent
- Frost Arrows
- Marksmanship
- Gust
- Gust
- Talent
- Gust
- –
- Marksmanship
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When activated, Drow Ranger’s arrows freeze enemies upon impact, causing reduced movement slow for a short period. The period is extended against creeps. This spell is usually maxed secondly, as it helps you to kite enemies around. However, it can be maxed lastly after getting one or two point in it early if Gust is more valuable to you.
Avoid leaving Frost Arrows on when farming, as it can deplete your mana-pool very quickly. However, you can use it to attack enemies in the early game without drawing creep-aggro, which you can use to bully your opponents out of the lane without consequence. To kite enemies effectively, attack an enemy with Frost Arrows and run away while they are slowed, turning around to attack again as the slow wears off. Doing so will keep the enemy at bay and out of range to attack you, allowing you to survive engagements more easily. This is more easily accomplished with higher levels in Frost Arrows, as the slow is much more significant. This is very important for Drow Ranger, since if an enemy gets in range to disable you or attack you, you may be in a lot of trouble.
Drow Ranges releases a gust of cold air, travelling in a cone in the target direction which silences and knocks back enemies. Units closer to Drow are knocked farther back. Gust is usually maxed lastly, since it the knockback distance remains same at all levels, but it can be prioritized over Frost Arrows if the enemy team have lots of casters or heroes with strong mobility spells. Gust will knock enemies over impassable terrain, destroying trees they come in contact with and potentially knocking them over cliffs. The knockback will not disable enemies however, and they can still turn and use items freely.
Drow Ranger provides bonus damage based on her agility to any ranged allies through a global aura which also affects her. When activated, it will also affect any ranged creeps. This spell is usually skilled and maxed first since it will grant you and all of your ranged allies with more attack damage, making them much more significant threats in the early and mid game, as you get more points in Marksmanship and buy more agility items.
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Drow Ranger gains bonus passive agility when no enemy hero is within 400 units. Aghanim’s Scepter causes her attacks to splinter to 2 other nearby targets to deal half damage. While the skill is active, Drow Ranger will glow with a snowy aura. Drow is very weak until she hits level 6, whereupon she gains a massive 40 agility, increasing her damage and attack speed. However, this also makes her very reliant upon the passive from her ultimate, which in turn makes her very susceptible to enemies with lots of mobility who can close the gap on her very easily.
In general, the extra stats are almost always a better option. The stats are relatively minor, but they help more in the long run than the movement speed will in most cases, especially since Drow Ranger’s all-around stat gain isn’t very good. The extra movement speed can be good if you need extra help in positioning your hero and avoiding certain enemies and their spells.
The attack speed will undoubtedly increase your DPS, but if you’re playing against lots melee heroes, you may be finding it hard to attack at all, as you may constantly have to be positioning yourself. In that case, the extra Gust knockback distance is certainly more helpful. It can create a massive gap between you and the threat and will certainly help you to survive much longer in team-fights in Dota 2 esports.
In most cases, the extra Marksmanship agility is more preferred, since it offers Drow a lot of damage and attack speed. It will also add some more damage to the attack of your ranged allies, since the agility is converted through Precision Aura. The extra Gust duration will bring the total duration up to 9 seconds. This may be preferred if the enemy team have many spell-casters or melee heroes who can disable Marksmanship easily. You should also consider whether your allies could benefit from the extra damage if you have more than two ranged damage dealers.
The extra Precision Aura damage will greatly benefit any allied ranged damage dealers, especially if you have lots of agility items. It will also increase your damage a bit, and can be beneficial when it comes to using the active to push the lanes out. The 50% Cooldown Reduction can be useful in a number of situations. It will allow you to use all of your defensive items such as Hurricane Pike, Black King Bar, Silver Edge or Butterfly a lot sooner. This will help to keep you alive a lot longer in team-fights. It can also be beneficial if you have more offensive items such as Nullifier or Manta Style. It will also reduce the downtime of the Precision Aura active to only 20 seconds, which will allow you to keep the lanes pushed out which can be helpful if you’re dealing with split-pushers or mega creeps.
Drow Ranger needs some health regen to sustain her in lane, as she is quite squishy and can be easily killed if she is low on health. Beyond this however, she needs only Agility items to help her last-hit, and to grant her allies a little bit more damage in the laning phase.
A Magic Wand provides Drow with a lot more sustainability through the early and mid game. It’s a cheap item which provides a lot of value, especially since Drow can fight quite well as early as level 6.
Power Treads should always be the boots of choice for Drow and should always be picked up relatively early. They add more agility and attack speed which increases her DPS and adds more damage to her Precision Aura.
A Ring of Aquila helps Drow regenerate her mana-pool to sustain her Frost Arrows and Gust. She needs minimal mana regen for this spells, and the mana regen from the aura fits her well. In addition, it provides more damage and agility, both of which are helpful for Drow and some extra armor. The armor aura can help her to pressure towers even more easily, as they will help to tank her creeps up a bit more. Overall, it’s a great item on Drow Ranger and should be gotten in almost every game.
A Dragon Lnace is another core item to get on Drow Ranger. The stats it provides are very helpful for her and they add more attack range. The extra attack range is incredibly valuable on Drow since she relies on kiting enemies and avoiding getting too close in team-fights. Lastly, it can and should be built into a Hurricane Pike in just about every game.
A Mask of Madness can be a very strong item on Drow if you’re not facing very much physical damage. This depends also upon whether on those heroes are able to, or simply are, attacking you in team-fights. If you won’t be getting attacked much in fights, then you can get away with the minus-armor penalty from the active and benefit very much from the active. With the extra attack speed, you will be able to shred through towers and enemies alike. Make sure to use Gust before using it and you’ll probably be able to kill an enemy for the duration they are silenced.
The lifesteal will also help to keep your health pool topped up throughout the mid and late game. You can very easily heal up quite quickly from farming Ancients with Frost Arrows and the active, as they won’t be able to attack you. This can be helpful if you need to heal up before or after a fight or taking an objective.
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A Shadow Blade is a strong item on Drow as it helps to make up for her greatest weakness. Mobile melee heroes can easily get on top of Drow and bring her down quickly. Having a Shadow Blade allows you to re-position yourself in case you get gone on. Granted, it’s very easily countered by Sentry Wards and Dust of Appearance, but carries generally will struggle to have space for these items, especially in the mid and late game. Shadow Blade will also allow you to get many easy kill in the early and mid game, as you can initiate upon lone enemies with the silence from Gust to prevent them from escaping or retaliating easily.
Yasha provides Drow Ranger with a lot of bonus agility, attack speed and movement speed, all of which are helpful for her for pushing Dota 2 ranks. It can also be built into either a Manta Style or a Sange and Yasha which are great items in most games.
A Hurricane Pike should be gotten in almost every game on Drow Ranger. It allows her to create a lot of space between melee heroes should they manage to get near or jump on you. You can also use it to just generally push yourself out of harm’s way, but try to use it on an enemy to benefit from the 4 attacks without attack range. It provides a lot of great stats for Drow and a powerful active, and as such, this is a core item for the hero.
A Silver Edge can be a great upgrade to a Shadow Blade, especially if you’re facing enemies with strong passives. In this case, it may be better to get it in the mid game, as it may often help you to get kills and win fights more easily.
A Butterfly is a great late game item on Drow Ranger. It grants her a massive boost to her agility and attack speed, greatly increasing her damage output. It also provides some evasion which can be helpful against ranged heroes and some heroes with bashes or similar effects, and lastly the active movement speed buff can be used to help keep you alive. The evasion is generally not as useful on Drow, since she isn’t a hero who fights the enemy carry 1 vs 1. This means that if she gets gone on, she usually has to retreat or at least re-position herself, which the active helps very much with.
A Black King Bar can be very helpful against line-ups with lots of magical damage or disables. Drow Ranger is a very squishy hero and without a Black King Bar can be easily killed by enemies with lots of magical damage. A BKB will effectively allow you to stand your ground in team-fights and keep attacking enemies without fear of getting gone on by more heroes other than right-clickers.
A Monkey King Bar is not an ideal item on Drow Ranger since she doesn’t gain any agility from it. However, she does gain a large amount of damage and a significant increase to her accuracy which can be incredibly important against heroes with evasion.
A Daedalus can be a great item to get if you need a significant boost to your damage output. The critical hits can be massive considering Drow’s already high damage output due to Marksmanship. It can be very strong if you don’t need any more survivability and just need to deal with bringing down a tanky core hero.
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A Manta Style can be a strong item to get if you are facing heroes with either lots of silences, roots or slows. It provides Drow Ranger with a number of great stats which synergize well her, such as Agility, movement speed and attack speed and the active has a lot of uses. She can use it when pushing a tower to completely shred through them, as they will deal a massive amount of damage due to her high agility. The defensive purge can also be good to deal with negative de-buffs. Lastly, it can be used to disjoint certain spells, which although may prove difficult to pull off, can be another reason to get it, especially if you are able to somewhat reliably disjoint spells. A very popular item in DPC Dota tournaments.
An Aeon Disk is quite a situational item on Drow but it has its uses. If you are getting initiated upon by a hero such as Batrider and being focused down, an Aeon Disk will give you a chance to escape and reset the fight. If you have other items such as a Satanic and/or Black King Bar, you will be able to very effectively counter the enemy team’s initiation.
An Aghanim’s Scepter can be good if you are dealing with illusion heroes or lineups with lots of melee heroes, as the split will be able to affect multiple heroes. The splinters are fully affected by Frost Arrows in addition to any attack modifiers. This means that you can keep several heroes slowed at once, and can potentially deal a lot of damage through items such as Maelstrom, as they will get many chances to proc.
A Sange and Yasha can be a good mid game item to get if you don’t need any other defensive item to keep yourself alive. In most games you will need at least a Hurricane Pike first, but after this a Sange and Yasha can be good to both tank you up a little and increase your damage output. It’s a relatively cheap item and provides a lot of decent all-around stats which make you a more effective mid game carry. If you can benefit from a Manta Style later, it can be great to get an S&Y as it can be disassembled later.
A Satanic is quite an unusual item on Drow because games have to last quite long for it to become effective. It provides a large amount of strength and a fair amount of damage, but most importantly, lots of lifesteal and a powerful active. The active will allow you to almost completely heal yourself up to full health while attacking, providing you can attack uninterrupted and aren’t taking too much damage. If you have a Black King Bar, you’ll usually be able to heal up very quickly and effectively allow yourself and your team to restart a team-fight.
A Nullifier can be a great item to get in order to deal with heroes who are much more easily killed when they can’t use their items. For example, it can be great to deal with enemies who rely on Black King Bar or Scythe of Vyse to win team-fights or kill their opponents. When combined with the silence from Gust and potentially an initiation from Shdaow Blade, you’ll be able to kill just about any enemy hero, provided they don’t have back-up and you have the follow-up damage. They will also be slowed for an even larger amount when attacked, since the slow from Nullifier will stack with the slow from Frost Arrows, effectively keeping them moving incredibly slow and making them very easy kills.
An Eye of Skadi provides Drow Ranger with a lot of stats. The agility is helpful for your ranged allies and will increase your DPS, the strength will help to tank you up in fights and make you a bit harder to kill, and the intelligence will help keep your mana-pool topped up when spamming Frost Arrows and Gust. The movement and attack speed slows are also very effective on Drow, as they pierce magic immunity and make it even easier for her to kite her enemies around if they have magic immunity. If not, they will be slowed further, as the slows will stack. Overall, it can be a great late game item if you some extra raw health and more control.
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Heroes such as Riki, Nyx Assassin and Bounty Hunter can very problematic for Drow Ranger in the early and mid game. This is because Drow usually lacks much mobility at this stage and is also usually very squishy. This makes her very vulnerable to ganks while she farms. Throughout the late game as well, unless your team has good vision around the map and are placing Sentry Wards or carry a Gem of True Sight, then these heroes can get on top of you and potentially burst you down. You will also not be able to fight back very easily, since the bonus agility from Marksmanship will be disabled.
Heroes who have spells which allow them a great deal of mobility are both a counter to and are countered by Drow Ranger. They can be a counter to you in the sense that they are capable of initiating on you and often have enough damage to solo kill you. Heroes such as Queen of Pain, Storm Spirit and Ember Spirit usually have no issue doing so.
However, Gust is a very strong spell against these heroes, especially if you chose the extra knockback distance. You’ll be able to create some space between you and the enemy and even more so if you have a Hurricane Pike as well. The threat of the silence from Gust usually forces enemies to buy some form of dispel or magic immunity, which then means that they will be able to harass and potentially kill you more easily however, so it’s mostly about who initiates on who.
Visage’s Familiars are very strong when benefiting from Drow Ranger’s Precision Aura. Each one of them already have quite high damage, and Visage can potentially summon up to 4 of them. They are only granted the bonus damage when the spell is activated, which means that you have to use it as a fight starts or when the Familiars are pushing a tower. With Precision Aura, the Visage Familiars can split-push towers incredibly effectively and can often backdoor towers if you have enough agility. Try to focus on getting some more agility items, as this will increase the damage they deal and will effectively allow them to carry even harder, as they will be able to pump out immense amounts of physical damage in team-fights.
Enigma is another hero who can greatly benefit from Precision Aura. Each one of the Eidolons will gain the full damage when the spell is activated, and although they are squishy, they can potentially be a massive source of damage in team-fights, since they can duplicate and potentially create 6 of them. The number of Eidolons and their damage can be increased even further through talents as well, making Enigma a surprisingly powerful teammate to Drow Ranger.
Heroes such as Axe, Clockwerk, Tusk, Huskar, Phantom Lancer, Chaos Knight and many more are capable of very quickly getting close to Drow Ranger. This makes them very strong enemies against her, since they will disable Marksmanship and can very often quickly kill her, as she is a very squishy hero. All of the named enemies also have follow-up spells which make it hard for her to escape them even after they initiate on her.
Heroes such as Pudge and Vengeful Spirit have very strong spells against Drow Ranger. They can both very effectively re-position Drow in ways which will almost always result in her death. Nether Swap and Meat Hook can put Drow In the middle of her team, and the threat from these spells often requires her to build defensive items which can help her survive. For example, Linken’s Sphere, Aeon Disk and Hurricane Pike are all very strong items against these spells.
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