Dota 2 Heroes – An Introduction to Slithice, the Naga Siren

By: Jason McCarthy

  |   November 9th, 2012   |  

Uncategorized

Slithice, the Naga Siren is an agility hero that provides some excellent damage as well as crowd control, therefore allowing allies to get away from some terrible situations.

She is a bit frail when it comes to enduring incoming damage, but that is not a huge set-back for her as her abilities do well to increase her survivability, in fact making it extremely hard to kill her. She is slightly reliant on a good farm, which is again not a huge issue as clearing waves of creeps is something that she does quite exceptionally.

Naga Siren’s first skill Mirror Image is an active ability that will create 3 illusions of yourself that deal 45% damage and take 300% damage. During the casting itself, it will jumble up you and your images, thus creating a small window of invulnerability in which you can dodge certain spells. These images last for 30 seconds.

Her second ability Ensnare is a single-target spell that will immobilize a selected target for 5 seconds. The target will be unable to move, but will still be able to cast most spells. One note is that some blink and mobile-type spells are disabled to prevent them from getting away. The great thing about this spell is that it will go through magic immunity and will interrupt channelling spells. As an added bonus, Ensnare will also dispel non-combat consumables.

Rip Tide is Naga Siren’s third skill. It is an active ability that damage enemies within a 450 Area of Effect (AoE) for 220 damage, as well as apply a -5 armour debuff for a 8-second period. Any illusion that you may have spawned will also trigger this ability, but the effects will not stack.

Now we get to Naga’s ultimate, Song of the Siren. When activated, any enemy within a huge 1250 AoE will be slept for 7 seconds. Units will however awaken before the 7-second period if you leave the AoE yourself or disable it manually. An important note to this skill is that any unit slept will be invulnerable until the effects wear off.

Like other agility-carry heroes, Naga Siren is not the tankiest heroes in Defense of the Ancient (Dota) 2. This does not seem to bother her much as her summoned illusions do well enough to keep the enemy guessing whom to attack. More often than not, an enemy will go defensive once Naga Siren activates her first skill, thus allowing her to go all offensive instead of worrying of incoming damage. Ensnare synergises extremely well with her Mirror Image, while the armour reduction provided by Rip Tide enables her to really hurt her targets. Playing with Naga Siren requires a bit of experience and thus she is recommended for moderate of advanced players.

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