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 with survivability even in the early game and is 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.

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 spellcasters, although it will still be maxed last.
 * It is not advisable to max Precision Aura early. As Drow Ranger has low natural agility growth, and the damage from Precision Aura is drawn from this, getting one level before having one level of marksmanship will give so little damage that it isn't noticeable (4.7 with first level aura at level 5.). This combined with the fact that Aura scales slowly, only increasing by 4% for each level after first, means that leveling up Precision Aura pre level 7 is hardly ever worthwhile, let alone maxing it.
 * 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 375 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 375 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 disablers/initiators 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).

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, was originally 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 Trueshot Aura.
 * The term "Drow", another name for "Dark Elf", originates from the RPG pioneer Dungeons and Dragons.
 * She, like Enchantress,  Slark,  Meepo,  Lycanthrope (with Shapeshift), and  Luna (with Lunar Blessing), is one of the few heroes to have a very wide sight range at both day and night. At night, she is only 100 units short from the max sight range of 1800.