You can skip taking any points in this spell and max your other two spells when there is no kill threat on the enemy core in your lane, or when in an unfavorable matchup. Shadow Strike spam is incredibly powerful in lane to whittle away the HP of the enemy core and zone them out of the lane.
Avoid blinking into dangerous areas that you do not have vision of as that will often get you killed without any way to escape.
Use Scream of Pain to secure last hits in lane that are being contested, especially the ranged creep. Try to also hit the enemy hero with the spell as you do this.
Starting
A consumable for sustained HP regen in the laning stage. Helps you trade your HP with enemy heroes and heal back up without having to go to fountain. Provides double HP regen when eating a tree planted using an Iron Branch.
A consumable for a burst of HP. Especially useful to surprise enemies when you are at low health to survive an engagement. Also provides some useful damage in the laning stage.
The most cost efficient stats item in Dota 2. Useful in the laning stage to have an HP, mana, and damage advantage against enemy heroes. Can be used together with a Tango for double HP regen.
Early Game
A core item for mid laners to gain some HP and mana sustain. Also allows the potential to make plays with power runes past the 6 minute mark.
An early game pick up that helps you get through the laning stage with more stats. The mana regen is particularly useful when your hero spams spells for farming and fighting.
A core Boots of Speed upgrade to improve your stats and increase your DPS with right clicks. Also helps you conserve mana through stats toggling.
Start with Magic Stick if you expect high frequency of spells from enemy heroes on the lane.
An early to mid game item to defend against bursts of magical damage. Also provides some useful mana regeneration.
Mid Game
A core item to increase the damage of your spells and resolve some of your mana issues when spamming spells while fighting and farming. Builds into Kaya and Sange later in the game.
A core item to increase your magic damage output by applying Scream of Pain with every Shadow Strike on enemy heroes. The Scream of Pain pops off every time you reapply Shadow Strike. Lets you have more burst damage against enemy heroes.
A core item to boost your magic damage output and tankiness. Lets you be more fearless when Blinking in for kills on enemy heroes. Also resolves your mana issues with better mana regen and lower mana cost on spells.
A core item to avoid most disables and silences on the enemy team and get your spells of freely in fights to kill enemy heroes. Also improves your right click damage and tankiness through HP pool and magic resistance.
A core item to increase your AoE damage and control with Blink. Lets you clear creep waves much faster and get on top of enemy heroes to burst them in the silence duration. Also helps with escaping as the damage and silence can prevent enemy heroes from chasing you.
A core item that provides spell lifesteal, which goes well with your high spell damage toolkit. Also lets you do more damage with your spells in an AoE around you while providing a bigger HP pool as well as damage and mana pool through stats. Builds into Bloodstone later in the game.
Late Game
An upgrade for Veil of Discord to massively increase the spell lifesteal upon activation and become extremely tanky with a bigger HP pool. Also lets you do more damage with your spells in an AoE around you even without activation.
A core item that maintains your mobility and kill threat on the map more often by reducing the cooldown of all your spells and items.
A core item that gives you some much needed armor and increases the AoE of all your spells, including Sonic Wave, the damage and silence on Blink with Aghanim`s Shard, and the Scream of Pain proc on Shadow Strike with Aghanim`s Scepter. Works well against illusions and summons along with your AoE damage spells.
A late game item that can win you the teamfight with double Sonic Wave. Also refreshes your Blink to escape when in trouble.
Situational
A situational item in the early game to increase your kill threat on the map with an instant silence and snowball with kills.
A powerful defensive tool to block single target disables and debuffs like Duel, Lasso, Hex, or Doom.
An upgrade for Witch Blade that provides you with a lot of DPS when transitioning to right-click damage into the mid to late game phase.
Allows you to Silence an enemy and do additional damage to them with each attack for it`s duration. Effective when combined with a high frequency of attacks and versus highly mobile heroes.
A late game pick up that gives you instant lockdown against elusive enemy heroes to follow up with your damage spells to burst them down. Also provides mana regen to spam spells.
