Night Stalker/Counters

Bad against...

 * can stun Night Stalker outside of Crippling Fears relatively small radius.
 * is a great way to force Night Stalker to fight Chaos Knight, a hero with massive health and damage output. It also forces Night Stalker's Crippling Fear off his primary target.
 * Night Stalker doesn't have a lot of ways to deal with multiple targets, which makes him vulnerable to illusions unless Night Stalker buys.


 * Void's slow is useless against Lycan by activating.
 * Night Stalker's single target abilities (with the exception of Void upgraded by ) is not very effective against Lycan's during the early and mid game.


 * and prevents Night Stalker from escaping and ganking during daytime or even nighttime.
 * reduces Night Stalker's armor, making him easier to focus down.
 * can be effective against Night Stalker, due to his single target abilities.


 * Void's slow is dispelled by or counteracted by.
 * 's and 's slow reduces Night Stalker's mobility and helps him or his ally escape if they're inflicted by Void or Crippling Fear.
 * Night Stalker has no AoE abilites to take out Phantom Lancer's illusions. Even if Night Stalker gets an, there will be way too many illusions for Night Stalker to handle.


 * makes it difficult to burst Sven down with both the passive (with ) and active component.
 * Sven under the effect of and his massive physical damage make Sven very dangerous to engage in the mid game.


 * provides a 60% miss chance, which can make the attack speed bonus from Hunter in the Night largely ineffective.
 * together with and  stacks gives him a high chance of rooting Night Stalker, which allows Troll Warlord to man-fight Night Stalker in any stage of the game, regardless of whether or not it's night.
 * Night Stalker is not a common carrier to counteract this problem.

Others

 * turns night to day, overriding Dark Ascension during.
 * 's turns Night Stalker mobility against him and  grants movement speed bonus and vision prevents Night Stalker from initiating and re-initiating.
 * Heroes that are hard to gank:, ,.
 * Heroes with illusions and summons can manfight Night Stalker:, ,.
 * Heroes with stronger lane presence that can threaten to kill him:, , , ,.
 * Heroes that can punish aggressive heroes, such as:, , ,.

Items

 * is an easy way to escape Night Stalker after Void is used if you can survive his followup physical attacks.
 * dispels Void's slow, as well as creating illusions that can waste his single-target abilities but doesn't stop you being silenced by Crippling Fear.
 * sends Void's slow back to him or removes the debuff from an ally.
 * prevents Void's slow and damage.
 * brings targets out of Crippling Fear's area.
 * or prevents Night Stalker attacking on you or an ally.
 * wastes Night Stalker's Crippling Fear duration.
 * breaks Hunter of the Night.
 * provides spell immunity, making Crippling Fear and Void useless.

Good against...

 * Storm Spirit is absolutely helpless if caught within Night Stalker's silence range.
 * Common items a Storm Spirit will build will not remove the AoE silence.


 * Puck cannot use any of its normal means to survive should Night Stalker catch it within Crippling Fear, and goes down quickly.


 * The long silence at night prevents Clinkz from escaping with invisibility if Night Stalker can sneak up on him. He also has really low base health, so Night Stalker can usually kill him alone during one cast of Crippling Fear at night.


 * has a short stun and creates an impassable ridge. However, Night Stalker can fly over it during Dark Ascension.
 * Night Stalker can find Earthshaker, disable his with Void, and then take him out with Crippling Fear.
 * Earthshaker may fail his blink combo against Night Stalker's team if he is not careful, as he can blink into the silence.


 * Keeper of the Light's upgrade loses much of its power, due to Night Stalker being able to reduce the duration of daytime by a lot.


 * Night Stalker is one of the best heroes to find (and silence) Tinker in the trees during Dark Ascension.


 * With Dark Ascension and Gem of True Sight, Night Stalker can easily find and kill Riki. Riki will also find it harder to kill the tanky Night Stalker than he would many other heroes.


 * With Dark Ascension he can keep vision on Slark, disabling his regeneration.
 * Night Stalker is very fast so without the Pounce in lane, he can simply out distance him during the night.
 * Slark is matched in night vision by only a few heroes, Night Stalker happens to be one of them.

Others

 * Heroes with weaker mobility will struggle to keep up with Night Stalker:, ,
 * Heroes with low health:, ,.
 * Heroes that have a weak laning stage:, , , , ,.
 * Heroes with low mobility that rely on spells:, ,.

Works well with...

 * counters the abilities of some heroes that are strong against Night Stalker in lane, such as 's, 's and 's . It roots  and Ursa in place when you need to run from them. This spell is also an additional source of interrupting teleports, and on a low cooldown.
 * counters 's, and while Blade Fury is on cooldown, Fate's Edict and Fortune's End will combine to prevent Juggernaut from trading back or disengaging.
 * Oracle's combo of Fortune's End and helps finish off targets within the duration of Crippling Fear.
 * can be amplified beyond its normal ability to save, as Night Stalker has a lifesteal talent and also likes to make Satanic. The delayed damage may also enable you to run somewhere where it is safe to teleport away from, while preventing from triggering as well.


 * turns day into night for 10 seconds while Dark Ascension grants Luna the bonus vision while active, which is minor but neat - although used effectively, it can help make up for Night Stalker's downtime in crucial situations. But Luna is also able to clear the illusions and minions that Night Stalker doesn't like, and increases Night Stalker's damage.


 * places all enemy heroes into a small area, lining the enemy team up for Crippling Fear.
 * helps Night Stalker farm easily. Empower also helps compensate for Night Stalker's lack of wave clearing, and lets him deal better with illusions and summons.

Others

 * Heroes that make up for Night Stalker's potentially lackluster team fighting so the draft is stronger overall:, , ...
 * Heroes that are tanky enough to help draw the enemy's attention, allowing Night Stalker to do his job of sneaking up on and cleaning out the enemy's backline heroes:, , ...
 * Heroes with bonus night vision get an advantage when Night Stalker uses Dark Ascension:, , , . However, this is likely to be quite minor as Night Stalker wants to save the spell for fights during which he'll provide vision for the team anyway.

List of heroes that counter Night Stalker, and list of heroes that work well with Night Stalker.

Night Stalker/Противостоящие 暗夜魔王/克制