Sven

Sven the Rogue Knight is a versatile melee strength Hero with superior physical power yet is coupled with various abilities that provide various utility. He can fulfill various roles, but is often played as a semi-carry due to his high utility even without items. He possesses a versatile arsenal, from shouts that grant armor both for escaping and pushing to throwable gauntlets that disorient enemies around the target unit. With enough items, Sven has the potential to be a strong late-game carry due to his ultimate which increases his damage making him up to three times as powerful, which then can be used in conjunction with his Great Cleave in order to deal extraordinary cleave damage which can frequently lead to multiple kills with just a few swings from his sword. This immense power granted to him solely by his ultimate makes one of strongest late-game carries in the game, and arguably the strongest semi-carry of all, as his killing presence is able to stay up even if he decided to build more supportive/tanky/utility items. A truly frightening enemy to go up against if farmed, strong and versatile, Sven is a solid addition to almost every team composition.

Counters
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Explanation
Lane counters:
 * can continuously you during the laning phase while harassing you with . Bring a  and possibly a  with you.
 * 's will make lasthitting challenging even if you decide to go for . Also  will interrupt your kill attempts and leave you out of position.
 * can stack you with when you are trying to lasthit while pushing your lane back against your . His  can counter your  and prevent your kill attempts.
 * 's stacks make you vulnerable to enemy ganks while also reducing your attack damage. His  will be a nuisance early game, trailing off during midgame when you have enough damage to swiftly destroy it.

Teamfight counters:
 * can stunlock you with and greatly decrease your base attack damage with, both of which pierce spell immunity.
 * will drain your attack damage with using it against you in conjunction with, stripping your armor and dealing physical damage over time.
 * 's slows your movement speed greatly for a moderate amount of time, cancelling your  and .His  can counter your  and prevent your kill attempts.
 * forces you to purchase by standing at a distance with  on, melting you with.
 * Even more so, forces the purchase of a  (or, which also "Breaks" her crit), as her evasion is completely passive and therefore there is no window of time that the player can prevent her from casting it like they do with Windranger, and Sven's poor attack speed is naturally worsened by the fact that 1 of 2 attacks, on average, will miss.
 * has a potent attack speed and movement speed reduction with . This pierces spell immunity.

Item counters:
 * is perhaps the best cheap counter a support hero can get. While ethereal, you have no way of damaging them if you had already used beforehand.
 * is a popular choice for fleeing melee carries.
 * allows dodging your.
 * slows you to a crawl, jeopardizing your already weak chasing skills. Loses power with your purchase of.
 * is core heroes' favourite response to your as you have no other means of crowd control.
 * is a very expensive counter to carries as it pierces spell immunity. Sometimes a  suffices, but is notably less reliable.
 * takes away your basic attacks for a decent amount of time. Loses power with your purchase of, although later in the game, when your spell immunity duration is short, it can still be quite potent.
 * is a decent counter-carry item with attack speed and movement speed reduction.
 * can reduce your damage output when used defensively on an allied hero or help enemy physical damage dealers melt you faster.

Tips

 * Early on, Sven has very low mana, so building mana boosting items may be a good idea.
 * Sven's good strength gain and base health pool make Soul Ring an effective item in situations where you plan on skirmishing early and often.
 * Drum of Endurance is a great item as it meshes well with Sven's role and play style, all while providing a strong aura to other members of your team.
 * Take over the two other abilities instead if you want more mana, attack speed and strength to increase the bonus of God's Strength early on and to help sustain your mana for using skills. However, this is only useful very early on, as Warcry is amazing for teamfights and Great Cleave helps Sven's farming speed.
 * If you prefer to initiate, get a Blink Dagger. Blink to your target and stun them with your Storm Hammer, make sure you activate God's Strength immediately or beforehand, which is more preferable as you can save more time on the casting animation and transformation time.
 * Avoid leveling Great Cleave early on, as it will greatly push the lane towards the enemy tower making farming more difficult.
 * As a melee carry without a blink, Sven is especially susceptible to being kited and having crowd control effects placed on him, negating his damage output. Don't skip Black King Bar to buy more damaging items, as it may result in doing no damage at all.
 * Sven's unique position of being a Support and Carry at the same time can make him a decent babysitter for a ranged carry like Weaver, Luna, or Sniper.
 * Consider support items such as arcane boots to give you and your lane partner more mana for your spells.
 * Without taking anything away from your lane partner, always try to find gold whenever and wherever possible (through pulling jungle creeps, roaming to help allies across the map, etc).
 * Sven's unique kit allows him to transition into a strong late game hero. Although transitioning a dedicated support into a carry is not often ideal and difficult to execute, this can give your team an edge in long games; use this strategy carefully.
 * Due to his Great Cleave and God's Strength a carry Sven benefits especially well from Heroes who can pull the enemy team together. This holds especially true with Magnus who can not only pull heroes together and stun them but also give Sven an additional cleave and damage bonus through Empower.
 * Later on in the game, Assault Cuirass could be considered as well, as the negative armour debuff, attack speed and massive armour gain allows for Sven to truly become a tank.
 * In order to maximize the effectiveness of God's Strength, you will need to obtain items that increase Sven's strength rather than raw damage - For this reason, consider skipping Mask of Madness for a Helm of the Dominator into a Satanic instead, as the substancial increase in strength, coupled with some decent raw damage and armor, and most importantly its intensely powerful lifesteal can increase his survivability dramatically, and if he has other strong strength items (Such as Heart of Tarrasque) and items with substancial attack speed bonuses (Such as Assault Cuirass or perhaps even Mjolnir), he can be nearly unstoppable under the effects of his ultimate.

Trivia

 * Sven's name is a reference to Sven-Ole Thorsen, a Danish bodybuilder and actor.
 * In an earlier version of DotA, Sven had a fun name called Arnold Schwarzenegger.
 * The phrases " Sven respawn 12.mp3 Twas only a flesh wound" and " Sven respawn 11.mp3 It was but a scratch" are references to the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
 * The phrases " Sven lose 03.mp3 Blame the host" and " Sven lose 04.mp3 Bad host" are references to the original Warcraft III DotA gameplay when game stability depended on quality of internet connection on the host player.
 * was named Storm Bolt in the early beta phases and was renamed into Storm Hammer at one point. It is also its original name in DotA1 and reflected in one of Sven's cast responses in Dota2, where he's refering to it as Sven ability stormbolt 06.mp3 "Storm Bolt".