Syllabear ~ The Lone DruidBy SuperChode

As of 6.59

http://planetdota.blogspot.com/

Table of Contents

Introduction Syllabear Breakdown Skill Build Skill Build Explanation Item Build Item Build Explanation Items Not to Get Syllabear Techniques and Strategy Syllabear Techniques in Action Game Walkthrough Best Allies Worst Enemies Replays Credits Conclusion

Introduction

View this guide in DotA-Allstars skin to be able to read it without punishing your retinas.

This guide is a collaboration between VerGe.Tijon and myself. Tijon is the author of the strategy section and he created the skill and item builds. I edited for grammar and added everything else. In case you don't know, verGe is usually ranked as one of the top three DotA teams in the US alongside Complexity and Pandemic. This build is proven to work in high levels of play. Dijongenie[P] from Pandemic also uses almost the same build.

This is a guide designed for an extremely high level of play. I would still encourage those relatively new to DotA to try the guide and practice with it, but beware that many of the techniques in this guide require a great deal of micro and can take a long time to master for even the best of players. If you find this guide difficult at first to succeed with, I recommend you keep trying because this build is proven to work and many of the best players use a build almost

identical to this one.

This guide also has an extremely comprehensive strategy section. These are tips specific to Syllabear. I decided not to make a normal strategy section full of go to your lane, last hit, etc. ad nauseum.

I decided to name my Spirit Bear, because calling it Spirit Bear can be confusing and boring. So throughout the guide it's going to be called Pope Rocketfist III.

Syllabear Breakdown

Syllabear - The Lone DruidRange: 550 | | Move Speed: 305 | Primary: AGIStr: 17 + 2.1 | Agi: 24 + 2.7 | Int: 13 + 1.4Damage: 46 - 50 | HP: 473 | Mana: 169HP Regen: 0.76 | Mana Regen: 0.53Attack Speed: 1.29 (+ 24% IAS) | Armor: 2.4

Syllabear's role in a game is to be the carry hero. Carry hero means that he will almost always be the hero taking the solo lane, and he is expected to be the big hero killer. Syllabear is a highly effective hero in lower level play and competitive play. He is a difficult hero to master, but he is highly effective if you manage to master playing him.

Summon Spirit ( B )ear

Summons a powerful Pope Rocketfist III companion. It randomly Entangles enemies that it attacks, which immobilizes an enemy for 3 seconds, dealing 40 damage per second.Pope Rocketfist III deals 28 - 38 normal damage.Pope Rocketfist III will automatically teleport back to Syllabear if it attempts to attack a unit while he is more than 1500 range away from Syllabear.

Level 1 - 1400 hit points, Syllabear will lose 100 HP if Pope Rocketfist III dies. Pope Rocketfist III has 320 movespeed and Base Attack Time of 1.75.Level 2 - 1800 hit points, Entangles 8% of the time, gains Return, which allows it to teleport to Syllabear instantly (with 5 seconds cooldown), Syllabear will lose 200 HP if Pope Rocketfist III dies. Pope Rocketfist III has 320 movespeed and Base Attack Time of 1.6.

Level 3 - 2300 hit points, Entangles 12% of the time, and has Return and Demolish. Demolish allows Pope Rocketfist III to deal 1.33 times damage to buildings, Syllabear will lose 300 HP if Pope Rocketfist III dies. Pope Rocketfist III has 330 movespeed and Base Attack Time of 1.45.Level 4 - 2700 hit points, Entangles 16% of the time, has Return, Demolish, 33% Spell Damage Reduction, and can carry up to 6 items, Syllabear will lose 400 HP if Pope Rocketfist III dies. Pope Rocketfist III has 340 movespeed and Base Attack Time of 1.3.

Mana Cost: 75Cooldown: 180

This is Syllabear's signature skill and his best skill. The Pope Rocketfist III is extremely powerful and can entangle heroes. The Pope Rocketfist III is also great for tanking towers and is a good tower destroyer with Demolish. One thing which you may note is his extremely high health. When Syllabear is only level 7, Pope Rocketfist III will have 2700 hit points. This is one of his greatest strengths. Pope Rocketfist III is also insanely fast with a 340 base movespeed at level 4, which is boosted to 380 base movespeed by four points in Synergy.

( R )abidSyllabear can create an intense combative fury in either himself or any of his controlled unit.Lasts 10 seconds.

Level 1 - Increases attack speed by 10% and movement speed by 5%. Level 2 - Increases attack speed by 20% and movement speed by 10%.Level 3 - Increases attack speed by 30% and movement speed by 15%.Level 4 - Increases attack speed by 40% and movement speed by 20%.

Mana Cost: 50Cooldown: 30

This is a great skill. It offers a heavy increase in chasing capabilities and damage per second. Most of the time you will be using Rabid on your Pope Rocketfist III in the early game. In late game, it is highly advisable that you use Rabid on yourself because you will have more damage. Note that it only lasts 10 seconds. With four points in Synergy it lasts 50 seconds, that is why we don't get this skill early game.

S( y )nergyIncreases the Lone Druid's synergy with his Pope Rocketfist III with each level:

Pope Rocketfist III - Adds 10 damage and 10 movement points.Rabid - Increases the duration by 10 seconds.True Form - Adds 100 HP per level

Mana Cost: N/ACooldown: N/A

This boosts the effectiveness of all of Syllabear's skills greatly. It gives Pope Rocketfist III much more damage and movespeed; it gives Rabid a huge duration boost that it desperately needs; and it gives True Form an extra four hundred health, which is always useful.

True ( F )ormSyllabear learns to morph himself into a brown bear. He can morph freely between human and bear form.

Level 1 - 250 bonus health. Level 2 - 400 bonus health and has Battle Cry.Level 3 - 600 bonus health and has One.

True Form's Mana Cost: 25True Form's Cooldown: N/A

Battle ( C )ry:Give Lone Druid and his units under his control within 900 AoE 20 bonus damage and 2 bonus armor.

Duration: Lasts 10 secondsCooldown: 30 secondsMana cost: 50 mana

On( e ): Links Syllabear and up to 2 of his controlled units by the soul. Damage that they take is distributed equally between 2 or 3 of them.

Mana Cost: 80 mana Duration: 35 secondsCooldown: About 12 seconds

This gives a lot of extra health to Syllabear which you really need. If you cast it on Pope Rocketfist III, then any damage that either Syllabear or Pope Rocketfist III takes is equally distributed between the two units. One will work on any unit that you control. I use this skill early game to escape from ganks (Note: It doesn't increase your health by a flat bonus, the percentage of health you have relative to your maximum health will stay the same. So when using it to escape ganks, turn it on before they start attacking.) And in late game I use this skill to turn my hero into a beastly tank. One is a very useful skill that you receive by leveling this up and it makes Syllabear a monster tank.

Skill Build

1. Pope Rocketfist III2. Synergy3. Pope Rocketfist III4. Synergy5. Pope Rocketfist III6. Synergy7. Pope Rocketfist III8. Synergy9. True Form10. Rabid11. Rabid12. Rabid13. Rabid14. Attribute Bonus15. True Form16. True Form17. Attribute Bonus18. Attribute Bonus19. Attribute Bonus20. Attribute Bonus21. Attribute Bonus22. Attribute Bonus23. Attribute Bonus24. Attribute Bonus25. Attribute Bonus

Skill Build Explanation

Pope Rocketfist III is your most important skill. I have seen some guides that advise not using this. However, this guide isn't a bad one. Pope Rocketfist III is obviously an amazing ability and it is by far Syllabear's best one. So if you disagree with this, don't comment, just stop playing DotA or read another guide. Pope Rocketfist III has 2700 health with makes it a beastly tank, a really fast attack speed, a 380 movespeed which is ideal for chasing, and Entangle, which is a good disable. He's pretty much awesome in every respect.

Synergy is really good because it gives your bear a shitload of damage which you need early game. It also gives him a lot of movespeed. Rabid looks like it might be good early game, but the duration is so short without Synergy that it isn't worthwhile at all. The extra damage on your bear helps a ton in last hitting as well.

I don't get Rabid early because it won't last long enough and Synergy is just far more important because it will add about as much movement speed and it will add more damage per second. I get Rabid at levels 10-13 because the extra movespeed and attack speed that Rabid can give your

Pope Rocketfist III are far more important than +8 to stats. It gives your Pope Rocketfist III close to 522 movespeed and a high attack speed which will allow you to chase down heroes extremely well.

True Form is the main point that I expect to take flak from. I don't advise you to use it before level 16 because the trade-off isn't very good until that point. The extra thousand health is well worth and the access to the One ability makes this skill well worth it, despite losing your range advantage. Range is most useful in early game lane control anyway. I don't advise using this skill until you get to at least level 15 or so unless you're just using it to run away. I get level one of this skill at level nine because you can use it when you anticipate being ganked.

Item Build

I decided to make three variations on the item build depending on

Starting Items

To start off, I buy a Ring of Regeneration and two Ironwood Branches. I get a Ring of Regeneration for two reasons. First, it lets you stay in your lane for quite some time, and second, it's used in the Hood of Defiance, so it's better to buy it now while it will still be useful. I get the two Branches in order to help your health and last hitting.

Solo Lane Farming Well

The first item that you should buy are Treads for your Pope Rocketfist III. After that you should buy Boots for your hero. Next you should rush straight for a Radiance which you put on your Pope Rocketfist III.

Solo Lane Farming Poorly/Sharing a Lane

If you are against a hard lane or are not soloing, go Bracers for your hero and Treads on bear first to harass them so they can't dominate you. Then follow the regular build.

Core Item Build

Pope Rocketfist III

Syllabear

Boots of Speed (Pope Rocketfist III)Gloves of Haste (Pope Rocketfist III)Complete Power Treads (Pope Rocketfist III)Boots of Speed (Syllabear)Sacred Relic (Pope Rocketfist III)Complete Radiance (Pope Rocketfist III)Complete Boots of Travel (Syllabear)

What to Get Next

Syllabear

Pope Rocketfist III

Planeswalker's Cloak (Syllabear)Helm of Iron Will (Syllabear)Ring of Regeneration (Syllabear)Complete Hood of Defiance (Syllabear)Eaglehorn (Syllabear)Quarterstaff (Syllabear)Complete Butterfly (Syllabear)Mithril Hammer (Syllabear)Mithril Hammer (Syllabear)Complete Desolator (Syllabear)Messerschmidt's Reaver (Syllabear)Vitality Booster (Syllabear)Complete Heart of Tarrasque (Syllabear)Hyperstone (Pope Rocketfist III)Mithril Hammer (Pope Rocketfist III)Gauntlets of Ogre Strength (Pope Rocketfist III)

Complete Cranium Basher (Pope Rocketfist III)Mithril Hammer (Pope Rocketfist III)Gauntlets of Ogre Strength (Pope Rocketfist III)Complete Cranium Basher (Pope Rocketfist III)Hyperstone (Pope Rocketfist III)

Item Build Justifications

Treads on your Pope Rocketfist III provides a huge damage per second increase and greatly increases your chasing capabilities. With Treads, your Bear will be able to increase the amount of Entangles that it does and it will allow it to get more hits in on a running hero because of the large boost to movespeed. With level 4 Synergy, your Pope Rocketfist III has 380 base movespeed. With Treads that becomes a whopping 445 movespeed. This should be enough to chase down most heroes.

Radiance on your Pope Rocketfist III provide a large amount of damage. Radiance is the best damage per second item, and since your Pope Rocketfist III will always be in the middle of battles, it almost ensures that most of the enemy team will be getting hurt by the Radiance area of effect damage. If you don't believe me, this is the most common Syllabear item, and it is used by VerGe, Pandemic, x6, Q along with almost every other team that uses Syllabear. This has been proven to be effective and almost everyone agrees.

Now, that justification isn't 100% accurate, because it's a logical fallacy to just say that everyone does it. So I also provided some actual justifications below if you aren't convinced by the above.

1. When chasing a hero, your Pope Rocketfist III will get in many more hits than your hero will because he is much faster. Your Pope Rocketfist III will also perform more attacks per second because you will Rabid him and put Treads on him. Radiance is put on the Pope Rocketfist III which optimizes damage.

2. When chasing a hero, you don't hit the enemy as often, so the Radiance aura increases your dps by much more. What I mean by this is that you have to hit, then catch up to the hero to hit again.

3. When in a team battle, the Radiance has AoE and can affect multiple heroes. This further increases the damage from Radiance.

4. You can harass a hero with your Pope Rocketfist III even if your hero isn't around by moving

around with him and not attacking.

5. You can keep your hero farther from the battle since your Pope Rocketfist III will be in the thick of things. Your Pope Rocketfist III has much more health and you can summon a new one if they decide to focus it (stupid).

Sylla doesn't need more health boosting items than 2 or 3 Gauntlets. The reason for not purchasing any is because you want to get that Radiance as quickly as possible so you are able to best utilize it. The earlier you get Radiance the better. True Form allows you to boost your health by 600 if you know that you are in a dangerous situation and are about to be ganked and such.

Boots of Travel allow you to teleport all around. This allows you to farm in open lanes quickly and lets you get right into the thick of a team battle if one is about to occur and you are far away. This one is pretty obvious.

Hood of Defiance is to allow Syllabear to tank more, because at that point in the game you will most likely be the first hero focused. I get this item over Heart because 30% reduction from spells is really useful. A lot of the damage that you're going to take is going to come from spells. It's also a pretty cheap item, so it's going to help your survivability quite a bit. When you use True Form, you already have a large amount of health anyway, so that's why I prefer to get Hood.

Butterfly serves two purposes for Syllabear. First, it improves your damage by a lot, improving your attack speed by more than a Hyperstone and improving your damage by 60. It also improves your survivability, giving about 4 armor and a whopping 30% evasion. After the new buff to Butterfly, this item is pretty awesome. I prefer this item over other damage items because it's important to improve your survivability as well as damage. It's also a nice complement to Hood because Hood doesn't help against physical attacks.

Desolator is the next best straight damage item after Radiance (excluding Divine Rapier, but Divine Rapier/Aegis takes far too long to farm to be effective). After your Aegis, you can soak up damage well, so the next logical item is Desolator. I used to think that Monkey King Bar was better, until Bengal_Tigger provided this math.

QUOTE(Bengal_Tigger)Same DPS formula as I used above. This time I will multiply by an additional number to factor in armor and thus calculate an LPS. This is because Desolator reduces armor and that must be taken into account.

I will not take into account the ministun on MKB, or the fact that reduced armor also benefits your bear. I think of those two, the armor reduction for allies is the better bonus. An advantage to Desolator.

Now, the calculations. Syllabear has 2 Bracers and is level 20 (5 points in Stats). The target has 15 armor, so I will multiply by 52.63. For Desolator, the target will have 9 armor, so I will multiply by 64.94.

Desolator - (175)(231)/170 = 237.8 * 64.94 = 154.4 LPS

MKB - (190)(246)/170 = 274.9 * 52.63 = 144.7 LPS + 30% (100 damage) (75% Hero Magic Resistance)(246/170 hits per second) = 144.7 + 32.5 = 177.2 LPS

177.2 LPS/5600 (price of MKB) = 0.032 LPS/gold

154.4 LPS/4420 (price of Desolator) = 0.035 LPS/gold

The winner: Desolator.

After Desolator, you should get a Heart. At this point of the game, you should have a ton of damage, so it isn't really that important to get more damage. Survivability will be more key at this point, because you're still going to be focused, so the longer you remain on the battle field, the more damage you're going to do.

Hyperstone and Bashers come next so your Pope Rocketfist III can disable the enemy team more. By this time your item slots on your main hero will mostly be filled, so there isn't much other choice. I get Hyperstone before Bashers because it increases the amount of disabling that it will do by more than getting a Basher. The increased attack speed per gold from a Hyperstone and 4 Gloves of Haste are almost exactly the same that it's worth getting a Hyperstone to conserve your slots. If you get 4 Gloves of Haste, that only gives you room for one Basher.

Items Not to Get

Sange and Yasha might look like a great item for Syllabear because it gives some speed, damage and health. That's true, but in the early game what you really need is damage, and in the late game it doesn't offer enough of those attributes to make it worthwhile. Radiance is a better item because Radiance gives a ton of damage, whereas Sange and Yasha give around 250 health, and 32 damage and 26% increased attack speed. It's more effective to use Rabid on your Pope Rocketfist III anyway, so it makes sense to get an item to pump its damage.

I disagree that you will need the movement speed. At that stage of the game (right after Radiance), your bear will be doing almost all of your damage anyway, so it isn't that important to be able to chase the enemy with your hero. I really don't think that Syllabear needs to be made into a more effective chasing hero. The health bonuses from Heart are far superior to Sange and Yasha as well. I just don't feel that Sange and Yasha fits into this build, because the time you get it is not good. Sange and Yasha needs to be an early game item in my opinion.

Hand of Midas isn't that good of an item for Syllabear because you really need to rush to get your Radiance. If you get a Hand of Midas, it will take much longer to get the Radiance. Hand of Midas is good for heroes that spend mid and early game doing nothing but farming, but Syllabear needs to be very active throughout the whole game.

Helm of the Dominator isn't a good item for Syllabear. I know that Diaz_Leon advises to get this item in his guide, but it focuses on all the wrong aspects of Syllabear. The creeps from HotD are not as strong as when Chen dominates creeps, and Sylla can't heal them like Chen can. These also don't allow you to be a powerhouse in late game. HotD just completely goes against the idea of Sylla being a carry hero.

Headdress does not regenerate enough health for it to be useful to your Pope Rocketfist III. In one minute it regenerates 120 health on your Pope Rocketfist III. In 10 minutes that's 1200 health. In 20 minutes that's 2400 health. So even after twenty minutes, it still hasn't fully regenerated your Pope Rocketfist III. I'm pretty sure that sending Pope Rocketfist III back to fountain once early game will not cost you 657 gold.

Divine Rapier is definitely a bad item now for Syllabear, especially after the 6.42 version. With no Aegis in the game, it's just too likely that you'll lose your Rapier. I really don't recommend it at all. It takes a long time to farm as well as being extremely risky. Even if you do manage to get an Aegis charge from Roshan, if the enemy team kills you once, then you're walking around with a naked Rapier until you can kill Roshan again.

Syllabear Techniques and Strategy

Firstly, if you want to do all of these techniques quickly and efficiently, you should definitely have three different hotkey groups. One group for the Syllabear and the Pope Rocketfist III, one group for Syllabear only, and one group for the Pope Rocketfist III only. Also toggle the button near your minimap that has a bunch of dots on it. You want it to look like the dots are all spread out instead of in a pyramid. That will ensure that the units in your selected group don't all move at the speed of the slowest unit.

Use the bear to tank a tower while tower diving a hero. Tower diving means that you are trying to kill a hero next to his tower. This can be dangerous early game because your hero will not have much health. The Pope Rocketfist III will have a ton of health though, so this is a much safer method.

Use the bear to follow a hero that is ganking as an observer ward or like Beast Master's Hawk

Entangle will never proc unless you issue an attack command to your Pope Rocketfist III to attack (don't have your bear auto-attack anything.)

Use the bear to search for runes. Put the bear at tower when you do the initial creep block, so when you miss the creep

block you can continue it with the bear. Use the Pope Rocketfist III as a chicken at level 7 because it can hold items for you.

Whenever you send it back to heal, don't forget that you can buy items on it to then transfer to your hero.

You can also put a Gem on your Pope Rocketfist III if your team needs a Gem holder. This isn't always the best idea, but if you are careful with your Pope Rocketfist III, he will be difficult to kill because he is so fast and has Return. If you do this, you have to be really careful with your hero too, because if your hero dies, Pope Rocketfist III will drop the Gem.

When you are getting chased and your bear has treads, attack the hero that is chasing you, and there will be a good chance that your Pope Rocketfist III will entangle him, allowing you to escape peacefully. (If you don't have your treads on bear yet, send your hero to the fountain while microing your Bear to block the hero as you would with a creep wave.)

When you are pitted against an extremely difficult lane combination you should put your hero out of nuke range but just at the edge of the experience range. Micro the bear to get gold/denies. That allows you to farm safely. (This is a VERY hard technique that I'm still

trying to master, and it probably only works if you are the host or if you have little delay, because you can't just hold position with your hero. You need to move him back when your enemies try to nuke you. If you have delay this can be extremely difficult and possibly impossible.)

When you have just chased really far into enemy territory after a hero and are returning to your side of the map there may be some creeps following you and your Pope Rocketfist III. Use the Pope Rocketfist III to attack the creeps while you run away so the enemy team doesn't know where you are. You can dodge them with this technique.

When you have Radiance on your Pope Rocketfist III, don't forget that even if Sylla isn't next to it, you can chase the enemy around with it while not attacking, and the immolation from Radiance will still damage them. You can also use this tactic to farm creeps while your hero is at the fountain.

If you're sending your Pope Rocketfist III back to the Fountain to heal, it's a good idea to transfer your Radiance to your hero until your Pope Rocketfist III gets back. But make sure that you have an open item slot on your hero, or else you could drop it and an enemy might pick it up, costing you the game.

If you're really having trouble with your lane, then it's really helpful to creep the neutral creeps near you. It's very effective with Pope Rocketfist III. Also, if your creeps are attacking the tower, and you don't want to cross the river, you can just creep the neutral creep camp that has two trolls and a kobold taskmaster for some quick, safe experience. I highly recommend that you do this, because crossing the river is pretty risky, and these creeps are easy gold. If Pope Rocketfist III Entangles a creep, focus another one because Entangle lasts a long time on creeps. Remember that neutral creep camps will respawn every minute, so try to take advantage of that and not be near the camps when creeps respawn.

Obviously you can use the Pope Rocketfist III to creep ancients to get a lot of gold and experience. You would probably only want to do this when pitted against a difficult lane because you do not want the enemy hero(es) to free farm. Put your hero on the edge of the cliff so you can see the enemy heroes coming for you so you can run away. (You NEED to do this because when Syllabear is just leaving the lane like this, he's most likely killing the ancients) ALWAYS watch the minimap when you are neutraling the sentinel ancients.)

Another technique I'm trying to master is going back to block the creep wave every time it's coming(in middle) so you can have the advantage of being on the hill.

If the other team gets more than one Eul's just put your Radiance on your main hero. This isn't usually too much of a problem, but it can happen. It's good news if they actually mass Eul's because they are wasting all their cash just to counter you. Most people won't do this because it's so easy to transfer Radiance to your hero.

When you are level 16 you might want to always stay in bear form. You might want to use it only when you are being attacked like Morphling's morph stats, but it doesn't work because it has a casting time so your health goes down by a good percentage when you are transforming yourself.

When you are level 16 use ONE whenever you are in True Form. This spell is so awesome, it makes you a huge tank. But, against a team with a lot of AoE this spell is useless so you might want to put the radiance on yourself and not on the bear, cast One, then move your bear out of the fight to tank as much as you can. One only lasts 30 sec so

you need to press the hotkey for your bear, return, and use One again. ---- This one is very important.

With all these techniques and many things to do with the bear, it's important to use your judgement to know what you should be doing with your Pope Rocketfist III at the time. You can't do it all at the same time. And it takes A LOT of concentration to remember it. Once you achieve the perfect balance of all these little things, this would probably be one of the best heroes in the game, but it is extremely hard to achieve this.

Techniques in Action

Bengal_Tigger was nice enough to help me make this collection of little video examples for how to use many of the techniques discussed in the previous section.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AbrZPSDomg

Game Walkthrough

Early Game

First, you should request to solo middle lane. Middle lane is the best lane for you to solo in general because you have the advantage of the hill which makes you more difficult to kill. Since Pope Rocketfist III can't Entangle until level 7, just do your best to farm your lane and only harass minimally. If you're level 7 and you do get an Entangle, just attack with both your hero and your bear and pray to God, Yahweh or Allah that you get the kill. Last hitting should be really easy with Syllabear because you have huge combined damage with your Pope Rocketfist III, so try to farm a lot. Whenever your creeps push out past the river, go farm the neutral camp that has a Kobold and two Trolls for some safe and easy gold. I also highly recommend that you creep the neutrals if you're having a tough time surviving in your line (e.g. you're facing an Enchantress or Viper). Farming neutrals will still net you a decent amount of gold and experience, so even if you are forced to do this, you can still be on track for your Radiance. Remember that neutral creeps will spawn every minute, so try to take advantage of this when farming them.

Middle Game

You should have your Radiance by about 35 minutes in. It's really important that you do, but if you don't you really need to just power farm. If you are having trouble farming in your lane, farm ancients and regular neutrals. Once you have your Radiance, your Pope Rocketfist III will be extremely strong. You should constantly have your Pope Rocketfist III on Rabid and just try to chase down as many heroes as possible. Your team might start pushing here or they might not, it depends on your strategy. If they are pushing, you should be leading your team with your Pope Rocketfist III, and going for their weak intelligence heroes. If your team isn't pushing, just farm

up a storm. With Radiance on your Pope Rocketfist III, you should be last hitting pretty much every creep. Neutral creeping is also much faster once you have Radiance.

Late Game

You should be in True Form most of the time in late game. You don't have to be in it while farming, but when you guys are pushing or defending a push, you should be in True Form. If it is getting really late in the game or the enemy team is massing Eul's, put your Radiance on Syllabear instead of Pope Rocketfist III. You should be leading your pushes because you will be your team's tank at this point. Just go for those low health heroes. If it's really late in the game, use One with Pope Rocketfist III and keep it out of the beginning of the battle, then bring it in towards the end to clean up. This will make you a monster of a tank.

Best Allies

Since you're a carry hero, your best allies are going to be support heroes. Although Syllabear has no special synergy with any other heroes, he works well with disablers and slowers. Some of the best support heroes are:

Chen gets a special note here because he has really good synergy with Syllabear. It isn't uncommon for Sentinel teams to have a different hero solo middle lane and have Syllabear and Chen go bottom lane. Chen spends most of his time in the forest getting neutral creeps and comes out every now and then to gank the enemy team. Chen has both a slow (Penitence) and disables (War Stomp from creeps). Chen is a really good partner for Syllabear because Syllabear can farm like it's a solo lane.

Worst Enemies

Viper is a really difficult hero that Syllabear often has to face. Viper is one of the best, if not the best, solo heroes in DotA. Once Viper hits level 5 his Poison Attack has no cooldown, so beware or else he may net some kills. This is one of your most difficult matchups.

Warlock is a really tough hero that you may have to solo against. He is almost impossible to kill because of his heal, and he can harass you heavily with Shadow Word. Warlock is actually the worst enemy of almost everyone because he is pretty imbalanced. Try to harass him a lot with your Pope Rocketfist III and hope you manage to get an Entangle (unless it's 6.40 or a later version). Also try to minimize damage done to Syllabear. Watch out for when he gets his Infernal.

Enchantress is a really difficult hero to solo against. Her ridiculous heal can make it extremely difficult to first blood her. Her Impetus attack is also extremely strong for harassment, so beware that as well. Finally, her ultimate really mitigates your damage. There isn't much you can do against this matchup except harass her a great deal early game and hope for lucky Entangles.

Tinker doesn't solo a lane too often, but when he does he can be a huge pain in the ass. Laser does 320 precise damage, which is equal to about a 450 damage nuke if you factor in spell resistance. The AoE miss that Laser does also minimizes the effectiveness of you and your bear. He also has Missile, which does 325 damage. Make sure you watch out for his double nuke combo and buy a lot of Tangoes/Flasks because you will definitely need them.

Replays

 ESL_Upperbracket_sP_vs._tPD_1.w3g ( 1.37mb ) Number of downloads: 3604

This replay is the ESL Upperbracket match between sP and tPD, two of the top clans in the world. There is some really good Syllabear usage in this replay, so I highly recommend it.

 Syllabear_Inhouse.w3g ( 799.51k ) Number of downloads: 1678

This is an inhouse of me, 2 other people from ELEF, a friend who only plays ladder, and Basics-, who is in BHz. I get really frustrated with my team early game for feeding in what should have been a really easy game. Once I get my Radiance it's good game though. This replay really exemplifies how good Radiance is on Syllabear.

Credits

Bengal_Tigger: Helped me out a ton with this guide. Gave a lot of constructive comments and

criticisms with good math to back it up. The strategy video probably also wouldn't have been possible without his hard work.

MasterJoe: A lot of great criticisms and an awesome pre-review. Also helped with the layout of the guide, so thanks a bunch man

All the people who posted awesome comments in the guide: So many of you guys posted some really great criticisms, and I had to change my build a lot because of you. Thanks a lot for taking the time to read the guide and post your thoughts.

Tijon: This guide is his brain child, so thanks a ton to him for being an awesome Syllabear player and writing a kickass strategy section.

Me: I'm awesome. This guide wouldn't have been possible without me.

Conclusion

Syllabear is an amazing hero and is probably one of the hardest, if not the hardest hero, to master. It takes practice, but once you have mastered him, he's VERY fun to play and extremely effective. Syllabear also happens to be one of the best heroes in DotA right now. For those of you who find this guide very difficult, I recommend you stick with it. Just remember that practice makes perfect.

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