Silencer

Silencer 19 + 2.4 22 + 2.4 25 + 2.9
	+20HP and +0.1HP regeneration/point.
	+0.17 armor and 1 attack speed/point.
	+12MP and +0.05MP regeneration/point.; +1 main attack damage/point.
L0	Base Hero Values
L1	⤷ + Base Attributes
L15	⤷ + Attribute Gain
L25	⤷ + 6 levels of Attribute Bonus
L30	⤷ + 7 levels of Attribute Bonus
	All values shown are without talent bonuses.

Hero

Strategy

Counters


Can silence all enemies on the map.
Two hundred years of selective breeding had produced Nortrom, the prophesied war-mage that would bring glory to the order of Aeol Drias. Therefore, disgust and disappointment followed when it was found that the boy could cast not even a hex. Yet, on the day of final testing, Nortrom would have the Last Word. His arranged opponents fell under an Arcane Curse, draining their health and prolonging the curse with each incantation made. Then, there was Global Silence. Not a gasp or whisper escaped their lips as Nortrom cuts his challengers to ribbons with his multi-pronged Glaives, stealing their intelligence to add to his own. At that moment, it became clear to all watching — The absence of magic can be the greatest magic of all.

Roles:	Carry Support Disabler Initiator Nuker
Complexity:	★★☆

Bio[]

Nortrom, the Silencer

▶️ "Enemies should be seen and not heard."

Lore:

Part of the seventh and final generation of a carefully designed pedigree, Nortrom was bred by the ancient order of the Aeol Drias to be the greatest magic user the world had ever seen. He was the prophesied one, the culmination of two-hundred years of careful pairings, a war-mage who would bring glory to the order, and destruction to their sworn enemies, The Knights of the Fold.

Raised with other young mages in a hidden cantonment among the hills of the Hazhadal barrens, the order's preceptors waited for Nortrom's abilities to manifest. While the other students honed their talents with fire, or ice, or incantatory spells, Nortrom sat silent and talentless, unable to cast so much as a hex. As the day of final testing approached, he still hadn't found his magic. In disgust, the preceptors berated him, while the children laughed. "You are no mage," the head of the order declared. Still, Nortrom did not slink away. He entered the day of testing and faced down the young mages who had mocked him. And then his preceptors learned a valuable lesson: a lack of magic can be the greatest magic of all. Nortrom silenced the young mages one by one and defeated them in single combat, until he alone stood as champion of the Aeol Drias, in fulfillment of the prophecy.

Voice:

Michael Gregory (Responses)

Abilities[]

Arcane Curse

▶️

▶️QC

Ability
Target Area

Affects
Enemies

Damage
Magical

Curses the target area, causing enemy heroes to take damage and slowing their movement speed. Silenced enemies take 1.7x slow and damage. Anytime affected enemies cast a spell, the duration is increased. The cooldown is paused as long as the target is silenced.

Cast Animation: +

Cast Range: 1000

Radius: 425

Damage per Second: 16/24/32/40 (

28/36/44/52)

Move Speed Slow: 9%/12%/15%/18% (

17%/20%/23%/26%)

Silenced Multiplier: 1.7

Base Duration: 6

Penalty Duration: 3

20/18/16/14

130/140/150/160

Spell Immunity Notes:

The slow persists and attempts to damage if debuff was placed before spell immunity and when not dispelled.

Modifiers []

Any

Nortrom's lack of incantations is less of a problem for him than it is for his adversaries.

Notes:

Whenever an affected unit casts an ability, the duration is increased by 3 seconds. The penalty duration has no stack limit.
- Fully ignores abilities that do not trigger on-cast effects (i.e. active attack modifiers and toggle-abilities).

Deals damage in 1-second intervals, starting 1 second after the debuff is applied, resulting in 6 + 3 per penalty instances.
- Can deal up to 96/144/192/240 + 48/72/96/120 per penalty ( 168/216/264/312 + 84/108/132/156 per penalty) damage to a single unit (before reductions).

If an affected unit gets silenced, the duration is suspended and the damage and slow values are multiplied by 1.7 until the silence expires.
- Suspends the duration by increasing the debuff's duration by 1 second on each interval.
- Slows movement speed by 15.3%/20.4%/25.5%/30.6% ( 28.9%/34%/39.1%/44.2%) for silenced units.
- Deals 27.2/40.8/54.4/68 ( 47.6/61.2/74.8/88.4) damage per second to silenced units.

Successive casts of Arcane Curse fully stack, with each cast placing an independent debuff.

The sound effect played on every damage instance is only audible to the affected unit's player.

Glaives of Wisdom

▶️

▶️WW

Ability
Target Unit / Autocast

Affects
Enemies

Damage
Pure

Silencer enchants his glaives with his wisdom, dealing additional damage based on his Intelligence. Silencer temporarily steals his target's intelligence with each hit.

Cast Range: 600 (

700)

Permanent Intelligence Steal Radius: 925

Permanent Intelligence Steal: 2 (

4)

Intelligence as Damage: 15%/35%/55%/75% (

30%/50%/70%/90%)

Temporary Intelligence Steal: 1/1/2/3

Temporary Steal Duration: 15/20/25/30

Bounce Search Radius: 600

Number of Bounces: 1

Attack Damage as Bounce Damage: 50%

0

15

Aghanim's Shard Upgrade:

Causes Glaives to bounce 1 time towards the closest enemy unit, dealing 50% of Silencer's attack damage. Bounce range is 600. Additionally, it increases the Intelligence stolen per kill by 2.

Ability Disjoint Notes:

Does not bounce when disjointed by the primary attack target.
When disjointed by a secondary target, the disjointing unit is not registered as hit, the attack may immediately bounce on it again if its within range.
Includes disjointed bounces towards the max bounce count.

Illusion Notes:

Neither can steal, nor benefits from the intelligence stolen.

Stack count is based on current stacks upon illusion creation.

Stack count does not increase whenever Silencer gains a stack.

Does not bounce.

Modifiers []

Although lacking in traditional incantations, Nortrom's pedigree of the Aeol Drias gives him uncanny wisdom, which he applies to physical combat.

Notes:

The cast range of Glaves of Wisdom is based on the attack range of the caster.
- The cast range can be further increased by other attack range bonuses. However, it is not affected by cast range bonuses.
- The bonus attack range talent increases the cast range to 700.

The bonus damage is dealt in a separate damage instance, and counts as spell damage.
- This means it is not affected or considered by anything that works with attack damage.
- This also means that it fully works with spell damage amplification and spell lifesteal.

Deals its damage before the attack damage is applied, but still depends on the attack hitting the target.

Glaives of Wisdom does not work or bounce against Courier, allies, buildings or wards.

Checks Silencer's total intelligence (both base and bonus) upon projectile hit, so changes in his intelligence while the projectile flies affect its damage.
- Glaives of Wisdom first steals the intelligence temporarily, then deals its bonus damage. Therefore, it affect the glaives' damage right away.

Temporary intelligence steals cannot reduce enemy intelligence below 0, but Silencer always gains the specified amount of intelligence from the ability, no matter how much the target has left.
- Cannot steal intelligence from illusions or from Meepo Clones, but can temporarily steal from the Tempest Double.
- Reduces the target's current mana by 12/12/24/36, instead of keeping the current mana percentage.
- This lost mana is returned upon the debuff expiring.
- The target also effectively loses 0.05/0.05/0.1/0.15 mana regeneration (and 1/1/2/3 main attack damage if it is an intelligence hero).
- Vice versa, it temporarily increases Silencer's mana, mana regeneration, and main attack damage by the same amount per cast.
- Unlike the target, Silencer keeps his current mana percentage upon gaining and losing the temporary intelligence.

Each attack places a new hidden modifier buff/debuff on both Silencer and the target. This means their durations are independent from each other.
- The counter modifiers on both Silencer and his targets show how much intelligence they gained or lost.
- Upon death, the dying hero's intelligence restores back to its normal values, while Silencer keeps the bonus intelligence values for the remaining duration.

Permanently stolen intelligence is removed from the enemy's base intelligence and added to Silencer's base intelligence.
- A +2 (or +4) appears above Silencer's head, indicating that he stole the enemy's intelligence.
- Does not permanently steal intelligence if the enemy hero has Reincarnation sources, is an illusion, from the Tempest Double, or if Silencer is dead as the kill happens.
- Denied enemy heroes count as well, as long as it happens within the 925 permanent intelligence steal radius.
- To permanently steal intelligence outside of the aforementioned radius, Silencer has to make the killing blow himself. His player-controlled-units or illusions making the killing blow do not count.
- When killing Meepo or his clones, only Meepo Prime gets his intelligence stolen.
- The number of stolen intelligence gained/lost can be seen on the status buff icon.

The permanent intelligence steal cannot reduce enemy base intelligence below 1. Silencer also does not gain intelligence from heroes that are at 1 intelligence.
- Enemy heroes effectively lose 24 ( 48) mana, 0.1 ( 0.2) mana regeneration and 2 ( 4) main attack damage if it is an intelligence hero.
- Vice versa, it permanently increases Silencer's mana, mana regeneration, and main attack damage by the same amount per stack.
- The permanent intelligence steal is not retroactive, it cannot gain charges from kills and deaths before Glaives of Wisdom is learned.

With Aghanim's Shard, the glaive bounces towards the closest enemy unit within 600 range of the attack target.
- The bounced glaive travel at the same speed as the leading attack projectile.
- The projectile speed can be further increased by other attack projectile speed bonuses.

The bounced attack does not perform instant attacks. The projectiles deal regular spell damage.
- This means they do not trigger any attack modifier or on-hit effects, and ignore evasion. However, damage block affects them.
- Although being spell damage, they ignore outgoing spell damage amplification and cannot spell lifesteal.

The bounce damage can be defined as (Atk Main + Atk Bonus) × 50%
- It deals damage based on the damage amount calculated for the leading attack. Attack damage amount is calculated upon attack begin.
- This means it works with critical strike and quell sources, since these are included in the initial damage calculations.
- This also means that it does not matter how much damage the attack actually did to the target, since that part is being calculated on projectile hit.
- Other conditional attack damage bonuses (i.e. Javelin damage proc) are not included, since these happen later in the calculations as well.
- The bounced glaives still apply the intelligence-based spell damage separately, and temporarily steal intelligence of its target as well, if it is a hero.

Last Word

▶️ET

Ability
Target Unit
(

Target Area)

Affects
Enemies

Damage
Magical

Enchants a target, providing vision of them and causing them to be damaged and silenced if they cast a spell or if the enchantment timer expires. Deals extra damage based on the difference in intelligence between Silencer and the target.

Cast Animation: +

Cast Range: 900

Base Damage: 120/160/200/240

Intelligence Difference Multiplier: 1.5/2/2.5/3 (

2.7/3.2/3.7/4.2)

Initial Debuff Duration: 4

Silence Duration: 3/4/5/6

Radius: 500

22/18/14/10

100/105/110/115

Aghanim's Scepter Upgrade:

Causes Last Word to become an AoE ability.

Spell Immunity Notes:

Does not attempt to damage or silence if initial debuff was placed before spell immunity and when not dispelled.

Silence persists if silence debuff was placed before spell immunity and when not dispelled.

Spell Block / Reflection Notes:

Blocked upon cast.

Not blocked.

Modifiers []

Any

Nortrom ensures that spells uttered by his opponents will be their last.

Notes:

When the target casts an ability during the 4 seconds initial debuff duration, the target gets damaged, then silenced and muted, and then the cast ability takes effect.
- Although the silence happens first, the ability's effects are already queued up, therefore the silence does not prevent the target from casting the ability.
- However death does stop the ability, meaning if the damage from Last Word is enough to kill the target, the cast ability does not go off.
- This means that damage negating effects (e.g. Refraction) and abilities that provide spell immunity (e.g. Rage) do not block Last Word's damage.

Fully ignores abilities that do not trigger on-cast effects (i.e. active attack modifiers and toggle-abilities).
- Triggers on channeling abilities, but waits for the channel to stop first.
- With Phase Shift, Last Word only applies its effects when the ability is canceled by the player prematurely.
- This means if Phase Shift expires on its own, Last Word's damage and silence are not applied.

When the initial debuff expires, it still damages and silences the target.
- Last Word first applies the debuff, then the damage.

If the target has no intelligence (e.g. lane creeps), only the base damage is applied.

The initial debuff provides shared vision over the target for its duration.

With Aghanim's Scepter, Last Word turns into a 500 radius area-targeted ability, so that it cannot directly target units anymore.
- Can target invisible units and units inside the Fog of War.

Global Silence

▶️

▶️RE

Ability
No Target

Affects
Enemies

Silencer stops all sound, preventing enemy heroes and units on the map from casting spells.

Cast Animation: +

Radius: Global

Duration: 4.5/5.25/6

130/115/100 (

110/95/80)

300/450/600

Modifiers []

Any

With a shock to the ground, all magic and sound pauses, and Nortrom fulfills his prophecy.

Notes:

The silence affects spell immune, invisible and invulnerable creeps, summons and heroes. Does not affect hidden units.

The sound effect of Global Silence which plays on each enemy's hero has the highest sound priority in the game.
- This means it heavily tones down other game sounds for enemies, making it basically the only sound they can hear during the silence.

Talents[]

Hero Talents
Last Word Mutes	25	+15% Glaives of Wisdom Damage
+1.2x Last Word Int Multiplier	20	-20s Global Silence Cooldown
+8% Arcane Curse Slow	15	+100 Attack Range
+20 Attack Speed	10	+12 Arcane Curse Damage

Recent Changes[]

Main Article: Silencer/Changelogs

Version

Description

7.31

Increased Arcane Curse mana cost from 125/130/135/140 to 130/140/150/160.
Aghanim's Shard upgrade:
- Increases Glaives of Wisdom permanent intelligence steal from 2 to 4.
Talents:

Level 10 right talent: +15

Arcane Curse damage per second reduced to +12.

Level 20 right talent changed: +400 health ➜ -20s

Global Silence cooldown.

7.30d

Reduced Arcane Curse silenced multipler from 2 to 1.7.
Aghanim's Scepter upgrade:
- Reduced Last Word radius from 650 to 500.

7.30c

Rescaled Glaives of Wisdom temporary intelligence steal duration from 10/20/30/40 to 15/20/25/30.

Recommended Items[]

Starting items:

Tango sustains Silencer's health in lane; as a support, he can also share the item with his team.
Healing Salve also restores health to Silencer or an ally.
Clarity allows Silencer to harass enemies with his abilities as needed.
Null Talisman provides damage for securing last hits and denies and amplifies the damage from glaives.

Early game:

Magic Wand has all the benefits of Magic Stick, along with providing stats and greater charge storage. As Silencer is quite vulnerable to enemy attacks even as a carry, burst HP regen is always helpful.
Boots of Speed help Silencer get close enough to use abilities, and potentially get kills or assists to enjoy Intelligence Steal.
Wind Lace also provides movement speed boost. Additionally, it can build into Eul's Scepter of Divinity or Drum of Endurance.
Town Portal Scroll transports Silencer to fights in order to steal early intelligence.

Mid game:

Witch Blade is the best first item for Silencer giving him intelligence, armor, attack speed and perfect passive that synergies with passive effects of glaives.
Power Treads provides Silencer with attack speed and appropriate attributes, particularly strength to give him more health. The ability to switch attributes can help with spell casting and outputting damage.
Hurricane Pike can be used on himself or a teammate as an escape mechanism or him to close the distance upon a fleeing enemy, or can be used to push an enemy out of position. Also, it improves his attack range and allowing him to finish off an opponent with four glaives at long range.
Orchid Malevolence is a powerful item to build on a carry Silencer, synergizing with all of his spells. Orchid is the only item which gives a large amount of int, mana regeneration, attack speed, and attack damage in one spot, and they're all things Silencer needs if he wants to be an effective carry.
- Arcane Curse's duration pauses when silenced, so a third source of silences increases the effectiveness of this spell, and increases the likelihood of being able to apply a second curse, before the first wears off.
- Glaives of Wisdom get more damage and more attack speed, plus Orchid's active will amplify all the damage done during its duration.
- Last word's biggest weakness is the 4 second delay before damage and silence is inflicted, allowing ganked targets to cast an escape spell. By using Soul Burn, then Last word, the delay duration becomes a benefit, as it provides True Sight over the target for the full duration, and continues into a total of 11 seconds of silence without using Silencer's ultimate.

Late game:

Bloodthorn, upgraded from Orchid Malevolence, provides additional critical strike and True Strike to counter evasion and bring down even the tankiest heroes.
Scythe of Vyse provides a strong disable. It also gives intelligence and strength, as well as powerful mana regeneration to sustain his abilities.
Black King Bar greatly increases Silencer's survivability with strength and spell immunity so he can continue to output damage without worrying about enemy disables.

Situational items:

Drum of Endurance suits an offensive Silencer in the early game, increasing the power of pushes with attack speed and improving his ability to chase enemies with movement speed.
Glimmer Cape, a support item, grants invisibility and magic resistance to Silencer and allies so they can escape.
Blink Dagger is a powerful mobility tool, no matter what role Silencer is played in. As a support he can easily position himself to cast his disables on the enemy, as well as use it to evade enemy ganks. As a carry, it gives him strong positioning, allowing him to move quickly into a fight to attack after disabling the enemy with his ultimate. Or to simply blink in to steal intelligence from dying enemy heroes.
Eul's Scepter of Divinity increases movement speed and mana regeneration so Silencer can make plays on the map. The active Cyclone can disable enemies, remove debuffs from yourself, and make yourself temporarily invulnerable.
Rod of Atos provides both intelligence and strength, as well as a root to catch enemies out of position, or to hold them in place so Silencer can retreat.
Shiva's Guard increases Silencer's survivability against physical damage while also granting him more intelligence to fuel his abilities and attacks, making it a well-rounded item. The slow can also help chase down fleeing enemies more easily.
Nullifier synergizes well with silence so enemies cannot use abilities or items, while being slow every time an attack land on them.
Refresher Orb, an ultimate late game item, enables Silencer to inflict a 12 seconds silence at highest level that pierces spell immunity and invulnerability, shutting down enemy heroes who rely on using abilities in team fights. It also refreshes items so he can use Black King Bar or Bloodthorn a second time, improving survivability and damage output.

Gameplay[]

Strategy & Tips

Counters &
Matchups

Audio[]

Responses

Sounds

History[]

Lore

Old Abilities

Changelogs

Equipment[]

Trivia[]

Unlike most heroes, Silencer's attack projectiles actually use the model of his equipped cosmetic weapon.
Like Death Prophet, Omniknight and Io, Silencer received a color palette change, changing his model and icons, having his former red armor replaced with violet.
- Before his palette change, newer players would occasionally mistake Silencer for Dragon Knight, and he would sometimes be referred to as "The other Dragon Knight". Even after the palette swap, some older players may refer to him as "Purple Dragon Knight".
Silencer's spell sound effects are based on some of his voice lines. Arcane Curse debuff sounds is based on "▶️ Curse you!", Last Word is based on one of his laughing lines and Global Silence is based on ▶️ this.
Chen is a member of the Knights of the Fold which would make him an enemy to Silencer based on Silencer's background. Despite this, there is no dialogue between the two heroes.