Night Stalker

Balanar the Night Stalker is a unique Hero in that he is affected by the time of day during the game. During daytime, his vision is lower than usual, he is slower in both movement and attack speed than a hero of an equal level. Once the sun goes down, Balanar's real power is unleashed, as both his physical power and abilities are enhanced greatly.

His Void is a slowing nuke that keeps enemies crippled longer at night. Crippling Fear is a silence with a relatively low cooldown (something rare on a Strength hero) that gains even additional potency at night, later in the game it can go on to become the second longest silence in the game. Hunter in the Night is what defines the Night Stalker, gaining supernatural attack and movement speed, but only at night. Darkness literally takes back the night from the day and allows him to achieve his full potential regardless of which time of day it actually is, all the while reducing the enemies field of vision and increasing the duration of night-time if used during the night.

Tips

 * Void is the best skill to max early, as the damage increase and slow allow you to use it to kill your desired target.
 * Hunter in the Night empowers his attack speed and movement speed superbly during the night, making him the best ganker during the earliest parts of the game.
 * Night Stalker will greatly benefit from being on the same team as a Luna. Her Lunar Blessing will give him bonus damage and her Eclipse will turn the time of the day to night for 10 seconds. This 10 seconds is often significant enough for the Night Stalker to set in and go for the kill.
 * Using Darkness during night time will prolong the duration of the night, allowing Night Stalker to ultimately change the time to his favor.
 * During the night, most heroes have below average vision, rendering them to be ineffective on chases and gives enemies a chance to hide the blind spot. Night Stalker, however, is at home in this time and has full vision, allowing him to effectively chase without getting obscured on his sight. With Aghanim's Scepter, he gains full unobstructed vision, allowing to see through trees, higher terrains.
 * Satanic and Helm of the Dominator can be used to help Night Stalker jungle in the mid game stage and the active of Satanic will aid him in healing a lot of damage if he has to face the enemy carry during a manfight.
 * Vladmir's Offering helps greatly with pushing towers after a successful gank and provides a vampiric aura to your allies.

Trivia

 * Many of Night Stalker's responses that refer to his vampiric qualities make reference to Bram Stoker's Dracula, a film adaptation of the classic novel starring Gary Oldman.


 * Night stalker's line " If I ever get my claws on that bird," is likely a reference to the rooster, a bird which heralded the coming of dawn with its cry. The rooster was sacred to the sun-god Helios.


 * In the earlier dota versions, there existed an earlier version of Night Stalker, called Void Demon. This hero had pretty much an extremely imbalanced set of skills. His first skill Time Void was an unassuming spell which had similar effects to the present Void skill, except that it had a 5 second stun with it. Void Demon also had a degen aura similar to Omniknight's except that it was slightly more powerful and had a 600 AOE area. His third skill was pushing type spell called "Quake" which was quite useful for destroying towers. And finally his ultimate: Mass Haste. This aura gave Void Demon benefits similar to Night Stalker's Hunter in the Night, except that it had no conditions and enabled Void Demon to hunt Heroes relentlessly both day and night. Ultimately, Void Demon was replaced with Night Stalker.