When ganking, use this ability to initiate unless you know the enemy has an escape; in which you can open with Crippling Fear to prevent their escape. With Dark Ascension, make sure you cast both Crippling Fear and Void before resetting them both with Dark Ascension to then recast both abilities again.

This is your initiation on targets who have an escape, otherwise; spam Void for damage: 1. Open with Void to both stun and slow your opponent 2. Follow-up with Crippling Fear to silence all enemies nearby 3. Finish with your auto-attacks during the night. With Dark Ascension, make sure you cast both Crippling Fear and Void before resetting them both with Dark Ascension to then recast both abilities again.

This passive ability is incredible for Night Stalker and makes him very comfortable at night to chase and kill at a very rapid pace. Night Stalker has incredible armour making him comfortable to tower-dive if necessary to get a kill.

Use your Dark Ascension to comfortably gank foes in the forest or to surpass terrain that may block your path. Use this ability whenever you want to gank, even at night, as you want the extra movement and bonus damage to guarantee the kill. Dark Ascension resets your abilities so be sure to cast them before casting Dark Ascension again.

Iron Branch can be placed on the ground to then be consumed by your tangos for additional healing.

An early bracer increases your survivability in the lane especially versus a heavy harassing team. But more importantly, it helps you with last-hits and since Night Stalker attacks very slowly, so amplifying the damage done per hit is worthwhile.

Phase Boots goes well with your Hunter in the Night attack speed and Dark Ascension movement and damage making your early-game engagements powerful for you.

Opt for Magic Stick early if the enemy spam a lot of spells or you’ll be in the lane significantly. Magic Wand can be bought as early as before Boots of Speed or as late as after your core Boots upgrade depending on how the enemy and their spell usage. Magic Wand can also be bought to make room for other items due to limited space.

Night Stalkers Void really takes advantage of Phylactery, it allows him to deal massive damage early when he is stronger than most other heroes. This is when you can start ganking regularly during the night as the Void and Phylactery damage will be massive for you to finish them off.

With Blink Dagger, you can activate Crippling Fear and Blink onto an enemy to damage them with Void and your attacks. Activate Dark Ascension to reset those abilities and really extend the duration of Crippling Fear and nuke them with Void again.

Rely on Aghs Shard to help farm (at night, you can farm Ancients) and to replenish your Mana as you spam Void to farm hard jungle camps. In the midst of fights, you can also eat creeps to keep yourself alive.

Black King Bar is necessary for Night Stalker to follow-through on his damage and nukes. Mid-game and on, Night Stalker will need his auto-attack, thanks to his passive, to finish off foes. Being stunned or silenced could hurt his follow-through.

Khanda takes advantage of Night Stalkers massive damage by dealing it twice over with Void into Dark Ascension into Void. Night Stalkers attack speed isnt great but his attack damage is incredibly high and makes your Void damage scale well into the late-game.

Hand of Midas is for the players that are doing very well in the early-game but know they will need to farm and scale up late-game as Night Stalker is not the best farmer for half of the game (daytime).

Heavens Halberd prevents foes from fighting back in addition to silencing them with Crippling Fear. The health and evasion is on top of Night Stalkers ability to deal intense damage at night as well as a strong nuke-slow.

The value of Lotus Orb is both its stats in mana and armor but also the ability to dispel slows and silences that would be keeping you down. Furthermore, the ability to deal back big nuking abilities to your enemies has tremendous value, especially against stuns or ultimate damaging abilities.

Rely on Harpoon as either your initiating ability to get enemies close or to keep them in-range should they find a way to escape. Heads-up that it pulls both you and the target and you must select the target so no skills required to Harpoon enemies.

Silver Edge is dependent on the enemys line-up. If they have passive abilities that you want to cut off, then Silver Edge will help with that to make them easier to kill (e.g: Bristlebacks passive abilities). Alternatively, if you cant get in close to enemies using Blink Dagger, Silver Edge can be an alternative.

Nullifier is a key item for you late-game: it dispels your target. Especially useful against enemies that rely on key passive abilities or items like Ghost Scepter, Euls, Glimmer and Satanic to have them nullified against you. Hero passive abilities like Windrangers Windrun and Monkey Kings Jingu Mastery are also nullified by Nullifier.

Dark Ascension, Void and Crippling Fear are incredible abilities that take advantage of the lower cooldown from Octarine Core.

With Refresher Orb, Night Stalker goes from casting his abilities twice, incl. Dark Ascension resetting the abilities. To now casting it four times, twice from Refresher Orb and twice again from Dark Ascension resetting them. Be sure to verify you have the mana to actually pull this off.

Assault Cuirass improves Night Stalkers armour and reduces the amour of his foes. The attack speed alongside your passive: Hunter in the Night makes this an incredible tool to ganking key enemies.

It goes without saying that Abyssal Blade would be the final damage-dealer needed. Combined with Night Stalkers passive ability that improves your attack speed: Abyssal Blade would make your attacks incredible and the stun would mean your enemy would be killed, without ability to escape, very fast

Infused Raindrop can alleviate some of the extra damage you may incur when ganking in the night while also offering decent mana regeneration between your ganks. For its cost, it can be worthwhile, especially if you cannot seem to be able to get any kills.

Night Stalker is at the forefront of fights and ganks. Being a prime target to damage and stuns. Blade Mail will improve your survivability, further reinforce your damage output and have enemies reconsider attacking you.

The value of Solar Crest comes from its movement speed and its dual usage depending on the situation: either to impart some of your armor to help an ally attack faster and survive physical damage OR to reduce an enemys armor to utilize your physical damage or spells for further effect. The mana regen from Solar Crest is just enough to help you spam spells when farming or ganking.

Drum of Endurance provides everything Night Stalker wants: improved movement speed to close gaps on foes. Mana regen and Attack Speed to nuke down enemies during the night.

Spirit Vessel capitalizes on your early ganking prowlness to then be able to dish out strong scaling damage to high health heroes.

Aghanims Scepter gives Night Stalker freedom to fight during the day in the specific AoE as well as its low cooldown allowing you to snag fleeing enemies in the Fog of War. Due to its low cooldown, you can regularly cast Void AoE to make team-fighting easier throughout.

Orb of Corrosion provides a bit more health and combines an early-game slow with minor armor debuff allowing you to force yourself against enemies who have no real escape. Works especially well against enemies who are fragile but hit hard, providing you more survivability and a great slow to keep the enemies within your range.

Echo Sabre provides additional mana to spam Void and attack speed to deal damage during Dark Ascension. Its an easy build-up for a ganking front-line hero like Night Stalker. Consider disassembling to make a fast Black King bar or keep it to build into Harpoon.

Thanks to Hunter in the Night, you have decent attack speed that makes Bash occur very likely for extra damage and for enemies to stay in your range for another Void nuke ability.

With Satanic, you have sufficient damage output but need to remain in fights. Satanic gives you more survivability and works great to capitalize on the damage youre dealing to extend fights long enough for you to win them. The key value is the dispel which helps you avoid being slowed or diminished when you need it most in a fight.

Pipe of Insight provides your team with better sustainability against tough magic casters and carries that can wipe your team up incredibly fast if they're frail to magic types.