We continue with our Dota 2 Item Guide series and this time we’ll be taking a look at Silver Edge. How good is it, when should you buy it and is it even worth it?
We've already covered Blade Mail, Eul's Scepter of Divinity, Abyssal Blade, Manta Style, Spirit Vessel, and Hand of Midas. Today’s all about the Silver Edge.
Silver Edge – now better on melees
First, let’s start with a short overview of the item:
- Patch of arrival: Patch 6.84
- Total cost: 6100 gold
- Grants: +12 Strength, +10 Intelligence, +40 Attack Damage, +45 Attack Speed, +1.5 Mana Regeneration
- Passive: Echo Strike - Causes melee attacks to attack twice in quick succession. The double attacks apply a 100% movement slow for 0.8 seconds on each strike. (5 second cooldown)
- Active: Shadow Walk – Makes you invisible for 14 seconds, or until you attack or cast a spell. While invisible, you move 25% faster and can move through units. (22 seconds cooldown) Attacking to end the invisibility will deal 175 bonus physical damage to the target, and disable their passive abilities for 4 seconds.
Silver Edge is one of the most expensive items in Dota 2 but is the cost really worth it? That really depends on the situation and what hero you’re using and the enemy's lineup. The item was added rather recently in patch 6.84 and recently it underwent some notable changes related to its components.
It now builds from a Shadow Blade and an Echo Sabre. Both of those are fairly easy to get as the most expensive component sits at 1000 gold. The overall stats provided by Silver Edge are a wild mix that isn’t really worth it in terms of gold. What makes the item beneficial are the passive and the active ability.
Echo Strike will speed up your farming and increase your DPS in team fights. If you’re building into Silver Edge, chances are you’re more interested in Shadow Walk. The invisibility makes it a good tool to initiate and disabling certain passives can be key to winning a fight. The extra damage is also appreciated.
When should you buy it?
Silver Edge is usually one of the ways to easily deal with certain heroes and their annoying passives. Let’s list a few:
- Phantom Assassin’s Blur
- Bristleback’s Bristleback
- Mars’ Bulwark
- Enchantress’ Untouchable
- Spectre’s Dispersion
- Huskar’s Berserker’s Blood
Fighting these heroes on fair terms is just stupid. In some cases like Untouchable, even a Black King Bar won’t help you. The only way is to stack tons of attack speed or apply a break with Silver Edge. Some heroes have a break effect tied to one of their spells like this:
- Viper’s Nethertoxin (only affects an area and doesn’t pierce spell immunity)
- Doom’s Infernal Blade (Aghs required, doesn’t pierce spell immunity and can be dispelled)
- Shadow Demon’s Demonic Purge (Aghs required, pierces spell immunity and can NOT be dispelled)
- Nyx Assassin’s Vendetta (pierces spell immunity but can be dispelled)
Silver Edge is somewhere in the middle of those as it can’t pierce spell immunity but once applied it can’t be dispelled. It also has a lower cooldown than Vendetta or Demonic Purge but costs more than an Aghanim’s Scepter.With Silver Edge, you’ll disable an enemy’s passive for 4 seconds (unless they have status resistance) which is usually enough time to take them down with your team. Spectre’s overall resistance to damage will drop significantly when her passive is out of the picture. Just remember that while “break” can’t be dispelled it won’t be applied on a spell immune target.
Heroes that usually benefit from Silver Edge
- Slark
- Spirit Breaker
- Kunkka
- Sven
- Monkey King
- Magnus
- Chaos Knight
- Slardar
- Nature’s Prophet
You’ll notice that most of the heroes are Strength-based and/or melee. While the break effect will work on both melee and ranged, the Echo Strike passive will only trigger on melee heroes. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get the item on ranged heroes, but it’ll be solely for the Shadow Walk and break.In some cases, it might be cheaper to get a Monkey King Bar (4850 gold) for let’s say PA’s Blur. Then again, let’s not forget that Silver Edge will also disable her Coup de Grace bringing her damage output down. Not every game is a Silver Edge game and sometimes it's ok to just let your team deal with that one hero while you focus on the rest.
In conclusion, Silver Edge is a great item that directly counters some of the most annoying passives in Dota 2. If you already have a spell with the break effect on your team it might be a better idea to reconsider its purchase. While it does increase your overall DPS the item offers little in survivability and might you might be out of position if the enemy has good vision.
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