Drow Ranger

Traxex the Drow Ranger is a ranged agility hero whose greatest assets are her incredible damage and ability to keep threats at bay. Traxex is a carry who, though lacking survivability, provides a worthwhile contribution through her damage alone. The Drow Ranger can be extremely powerful at any given point in the game.

As an agility hero, Traxex's damage is based largely off her auto attacks and is among the greatest largely due to the massive amounts of agility she gains from her passive ultimate, Marksmanship. The Drow Ranger also adds ranged damage to teammates with her global Precision Aura. Despite her lack of escape spells, Drow Ranger can keep herself relatively safe from enemy spellcasters and melee heroes using her Silence and her Frost Arrows, respectively. Frost Arrows infuses her attacks with ice cold, greatly slowing down her enemies. Since it can be manually cast, Frost Arrows can be used to harass her foes in the early game without drawing the creeps' attention. Silence is a great counter to enemy spellcasters who might threaten her life in battles. Position is of utmost importance as Traxex is quite vulnerable in close combat and the agility bonus from Marksmanship is removed when enemies come near her. This means she struggles against melee dps heroes with high mobility, such as Anti-Mage and Faceless Void.

Tips

 * Manually casting Frost Arrows (known as orbwalking) will prevent you from drawing creep/tower aggro. This is also needed to kite and escape opponents in a bad situation.
 * An early level of Silence is crucial to defend against spell-casters, although it will still be maxed last.
 * With the new Marksmanship, maintaining a distance is important for Traxex now, as this will help her deal great damage to enemies thanks to the additional Agility provided. Make sure you are more than 400 units away from your enemy and kite them to keep your distance so you will enjoy the full bonus effect of Marksmanship, as the extra Agility is negated when being close to your enemy heroes.
 * As mentioned above in the Abilities section, there is now a visual particle effect that indicates when the Marksmanship bonus is active. The particle effect looks not unlike that of dry ice, and it emanates from Traxex's body. If this particle effect disappears, you are too close to an enemy, and the bonus will deactivate. This visual effect also disappears when invisible heroes are within the 400 range, so use it as an indicator for a possible gank.
 * If during a team fight the enemy heroes get close to each other, using Silence in many or even all of them can simply turn the battle aside, making Drow Ranger not just a great carry, but also a powerful disabler/initiator too, if given the chance.
 * When in possession of Shadow Blade, she can effectively gank by taking a shot to break the invisibility and immediately using her silence, leaving the target slowed, damaged (due to her natural high damage added to the 150 damage bonus) and silenced, being completely unable to react (apart from using items).
 * Because of the removal of the bonus agility when there is an enemy hero near Drow Ranger, it is advised to avoid picking her when the enemy carries are especially mobile (Antimage, Faceless Void) or otherwise employ powerful slows that match Frost Arrow (Viper, Phantom Assassin).

Trivia

 * Traxex's original design was slightly different from the one now; aside from the same hood, her white hair wasn't present, and her eyes were completely white. Her outfit was also slightly more revealing.
 * Traxex's Ultimate, Marksmanship, originally granted a chance to one-hit kill creeps; however, it was changed in later updates to the passive agility buff she now has.
 * Traxex was briefly featured in the Dota 2 comic "Are We Heroes Yet?".
 * In DotA, Precision Aura is called True-shot Aura.
 * The term "Drow", another name for "Dark Elf", originates from the RPG pioneer Dungeons and Dragons.