Slark should have drums as core, probably before Shadow Blade. It will solve your mana problems Buckyman, and is very good in the current meta as well. BananaSlamJamma's guide goes into more detail about it:
Anti-mage: Magic Wand should be core or at least situational. Vlads and BKB should be swapped, or both be in situational. Moonshard should probably be in extension, as it is very common for AM to have enough farm to get 7-slotted.
Ember Spirit: PMS should be core or situational, this item is fantastic on Ember for a variety of reasons. Early game or situational should have BoTs and Treads, not BoTs as luxury. BoTs first is very good and treads are also very good right now, to the extent of being more useful than Phase in most situations. Skadi and Blink should be in situational probably, maybe not blink as it's a bit more of a higher-level item in terms of its use.
Aquila and Drums should probably be swapped in my opinion, Aquila is better than Drums in the majority of situations in the current patch.
Juggernaut: I would swap SnY with Manta; you only particularly want Manta if there is a silence to combat or you have some need of split-push. Almost no one is getting MoM anymore, and everyone is maxing spin first, usually with some stats thrown in and value points for heal and crit. It is probably worth putting Blink Dagger into situational items. Probably swap MoM with Drums (remove MoM, put in Drums). Drums is a really good item in the current meta.
Phantom Lancer: BoTs should be core or at the very least situational. I don't think you ever get diffusal, manta, AND drums; I would move Manta into situational, or else drums.
Storm Spirit: Should have Wand as core/early game. In fact, almost every hero ever should have wand or stick core.
Warlock (middle/carry): Phase boots early game for getting all dem last hits and increasing mobility. Octarine should be in extension items.
let me preface this by saying that BSJ isn't the kind of 6k player i would take advice from, so i am speaking from a little bit of personal experience and from talking to other players i trust more.
you do not need anything other than a stick/wand + aquilla to manage your mana. tread swapping and not over using your dark pact is more than sufficient. if you get low, you can easily run back to base really quickly and regen up. but you truthfully shouldn't need to worry about that too much.
that being said, torte, i do not put more than 2 points into dark pact before maxing out my leash because you simply do not have the ability to farm efficiently with dark pact before that (hp, right click in between pacts). in addition, you rarely get pub supports stacking camps for you to take full advantage of farming with dark pact. to me, the mileage you get from the shorter leash cd early on, combined with an oov allows you to do more on the map, which is more valuable in pubs.
slark already has 1000 more night vision than most heroes, so i doubt he would want to spend a slot on a moon shard. if anything, with that extra gold you'll be eating it, reserving your slots for stats/survivability-related stuff.
@birdie
AM - disagree on wand, agree on vlads needing to go into core. wand is a big side-step away from your ideal, PMS, boots, RoH (these last two, swappable), treads, BF. unless your lane is HIGHLY contested, you probably won't find value bc early skirmishes are not AM's forte. even if it is highly contested, you should probably just go somewhere else.
Ember - agree, PMS + tango is how i usually open. BoTs are very good, BUT remember the context of Torte's guides. These are aimed at people who have little experience with the hero. i doubt those people will understand how to play this hero with bots and why they are good.
Jugg - RE: sny swapping with manta - again, aimed at people trying the hero for the first time with teh understanding that many people don't always read the item notes. BUT, if from a purely 'this is standard' standpoint, you are correct. i can't say whether or not people are getting MoM more or less than they used to, but Yango was just saying in the jugg thread that MoM is no longer purged with spin, so i don't necessarily think its bad considering it was an enormous steroid to your farm AND you still need that extra movement speed to get in range for the (shorter) omni cast.
PL - if drums AND diffu are gonna be in core, you should probably leave brown boots as part of the "early game" category and then put treads/BoTs in situational. BUT, i truthfully think that in pubs a PL with only a diffusal and BoTs is terrifying unless they are really organized. then again, i also leave 1 point into dopple and phantom rush and level stats, so that's where my experience lies.
Storm Spirit - absolutely, magic wand needs to be core. especially since you're starting with two branches instead of a null.
Pact max is fine, Bluemoon, it's largely preference as long as you play it out correctly. You have to fight a lot for Pounce max to be worth it (like, basically between level 7 and 10 you have to get kills with it, which doesn't always happen).
Drums are specifically for fighting. Aquila+Treads is enough for farming. You don't actually need to flatline your mana, you just need to keep it high enough that a Clarity tops you off when a lane pushes over and you get to farm a lane--there's no sense buying an actual mana regen item for a problem that gets solved by 3-5 Clarities tops before you outgrow it. You actually have enough slots to just hold a Clarity in that level range, so really it's just people need to remember to do that when they're farming levels 7-10. Also note that the optimal Treads usage on this hero isn't just Int Treads for Dark Pact, but also to swap back to Str Treads during the 1s delay after cast (so you take the self-damage while on Str).
If you're going to put situational wand on AM, you put it on every hero, period. There are games for it, but literally every hero in the game has situational Stick/Wand games and AM is one of the least likely heroes. Moon Shard's still basically never worth it on anyone unless you're 6-slotted still, so either you put it on every carry under Luxury just for the hell of it, or you just never list the item, which is totally fair because nobody who's new to a hero loses games because they forgot to buy Moon Shard as their 7th/8th item.
Phase Drum is basically the newbie way to play Ember. Treads and BoTs are both better once you're actually any good at the hero, but I have no problems with someone playing the hero for the first time playing Phase Drum because there's less conditionals on executing well with those items.
PL - Drum Diffu Travels Manta is totally normal. If you get Treads you get it earlier but Travels can be either first item or after Drum+Diffu depending on game.
The two changes that you really want for this guide though are changing the early/starting items and the skill order. Starting items should be Tango+Salve+Stout+Branches, and it's a waste of space to have Wraith, Basi, and Aquila all in early game (you're going to send completed Aquila from base at like 5-6 minutes when courier is free, not eating up courier time sending small pieces). Skill order should be Stats at 8-10, Doppel from 11-13, and Rush after.
yeah i tried to frame what i said so that it was obvious i was speaking from a personal standpoint and if torte's aim with that guide aligned, he had a point of reference to base it off of. im almost always looking for kills on slark, and he's really good at that. that's why i enjoy playing with him. ultimately, you have to be flexible tho which can't be communicated in a guide.
personally i think the mana regen from the basi is pretty nice since you're going to be using lance to zone or secure a last hit from time to time. and as we discussed earlier, you simply cannot get get a clarity on this hero bc you need to be on creeps to last hit and itll just get cancelled. IMO the order of the items purchased under "early game" should probably be different with the same starting items.
Spectre - build is probably fine the way it is. if anything I would add urn to early game and max desolate instead of dagger if you're going phase instead of treads. i may also put magic wand in situational, but that's a completely personal choice (i don't like picking up/upgrading a stick on a hero that wants to avoid fighting and spectre really only wants to fight early when there's an opportunity to kill steal. i think urn does a better job with this because of how you're engaging with the hero)
With regards to slark, I'm sure Treads/Aquila/Wand isn't enough to constantly be pacting and still be ready to fight at any time with enough mana to cast all your spells a bunch, and if you aren't constantly pacting then you aren't farming right. I don't think Drums are exclusively for fighting, they're for both fighting and being ready to fight at any time, because of the mana they give you.
I would agree that every hero should have Wand in early game, as a "standard" thing, as opposed to no hero or very few having it. Almost every hero in almost every game wants to be building stick or wand, and given the guides are aimed at being general guides, I don't see that as a problem.
With regards to Phase/Drums on Ember, I disagree that it is the newbie way to play; it is the OLD way to play. It's not really "bad" per se, just inefficient in most games.
On November 02 2015 01:54 TheYango wrote: Then if you really want to start RoP+Stout on PL, then the way to do it is Tango+Stout+RoP, and send a Salve after 6s of ambient gold.
You can pick up Stout from side-shop, I'd be heavily inclined to pick up more regen to start with or items for my wand or wraith band that I can't pick up at side-shop. E.g. RoP, 2x tango, and circlet or 2x sticks (there are some variations of this which depend on game I think).
On November 02 2015 06:07 TheYango wrote: Starting with twice as many tangos or with 2 branches has less impact on a level 1 rune fight.
I don't consider this a particularly massive problem in pubs, in competitive if you are aiming for an early game level 1 rune fight it may matter but in pubs you just dodge any bad rune fight and take any easy rune fight. There aren't many games where you think "this fight could easily go either way and having 48 more HP is the difference between us winning and losing the rune fight".
I mean, it's the only real difference between starting with regen and buying Stout at side shop vs. starting Stout and buying regen on courier, because it's just as unlikely for someone to need the courier 6 seconds into the game (actually, you probably get way more level 1 rune fights than you get games where someone needs courier immediately).
Skipping stout in the first buy also results in a lot of crappy pub dual lanes getting crushed before they ever reach the sideshop, and also a lot of crappy pub carries deciding to skip the stout shield only to get crushed later.
Both of those are more applicable to newbies than rune fights or level 0:06 courier.
On November 02 2015 13:06 Buckyman wrote: Slark(Lane) Shadow Dance description - "Stay out of sight where enemy heroes might see you and you'll regenerate a massive amount of items"
=> "Stay out of sight and you'll regenerate a massive amount of health"?
Slark text, as a whole, is outdated. check the spoiler list for full listing on which heroes are already updated.
Gonna move S&Y to Extension Items and Magic Wand to Core Items.
I think how he is now is fine where I'm making the build literally: farm until Shadow Blade and then gank (a bit more nuanced than that, but that's the gist).
I think the build is fine, he won't be using wand until much later into the game. I also prefer to prioritize Black King Bar unless the hero has a specific way to avoid being targeted (e.g Faceless Void's ultimate), which, in that case, I push it to Extension Items.
Gonna leave Moon Shard out to avoid confusion as AM doesn't suffer from attack speed given his build
I'll double-check on Ember, but don't pubs still play it this way? I haven't tried the RoA method, what differentiates its playstyle? The Phase/Drums way is fairly straight-forward and a good way to show how Ember snowballs and capitalizes on it late-game
I need to redo this guide and either keep it as it is, or revert back to max spin build.
I like S&Y as a whole, but feel Manta has a lot of usage. We can swap it though as I was on the fence with both items.
: starting items seem fine to me though, two branches gives you just enough for another phantom lance, no? I'll remove clean up early game items (Boots of speed, RoA, Treads, Wand).
"Skill order should be Stats at 8-10, Doppel from 11-13, and Rush after.", I will have to double-check that, I've seen it before, but I remember this was brought up before and I hesitated for some reasoning.
Right now, we have BoT2 on Luxury Items; is that too far away? I feel his current item build is jam-packed from early to core (RoA, Magic Wand, Quelling Blade, Drums, etc.) and always wanted to reduce that or clean it up; so thoughts on this would help. This build is meant to have PL farm until Diffusal, then he gets offensive.
Will add magic wand
I hesitated on Urn because it might send the wrong message, but I can make note of its purpose. I think the max Desolate/Dagger conundrum was brought up before and hence the note that I wanted to double-check it.
: We can add phase boots for Middle and Octarine Core for both
I'll double-check on Ember, but don't pubs still play it this way? I haven't tried the RoA method, what differentiates its playstyle? The Phase/Drums way is fairly straight-forward and a good way to show how Ember snowballs and capitalizes on it late-game
RoA is ~1k gold cheaper than drums and gives the same or better stats for everything except movement speed and magical EHP. TheYango makes a good point about BoT-style Ember being a little more difficult but I don't think Treads-style Ember is much different from Phase, and they are good simply because they've been buffed and Phase nerfed to the extent that on many heroes, Treads are simply better. But if you leave them as Phase it's no big deal; the main thing is making RoA core and Drums situational, as it speeds up your BF by ~1k gold without significantly hurting your game. The play-style is much the same with RoA or with Drums. You would want to make sure they buy Wand as well IMO, if it's not already in the build.
EPT
Gonna move S&Y to Extension Items and Magic Wand to Core Items. 
I think the build is fine, he won't be using wand until much later into the game. I also prefer to prioritize Black King Bar unless the hero has a specific way to avoid being targeted (e.g Faceless Void's ultimate), which, in that case, I push it to Extension Items. 
I need to redo this guide and either keep it as it is, or revert back to max spin build. 
: starting items seem fine to me though, two branches gives you just enough for another phantom lance, no? I'll remove clean up early game items (Boots of speed, RoA, Treads, Wand).
I hesitated on Urn because it might send the wrong message, but I can make note of its purpose. I think the max Desolate/Dagger conundrum was brought up before and hence the note that I wanted to double-check it.
: We can add phase boots for Middle and Octarine Core for both
