i normally go for forcestaff orchid, and i'll skill 3-max wex- 1 exort

it rarely dies with a stoutshield on petbear unless you lose control or they ahve 3 stuns etc

Regarding playing syllabear on a lane thats totally controlled, you got to play with your petbear, maybe stacking 2 creep wave, allowing the opponents creepwave to push and reach your tower, then using your pet bear, lure the creep wave back behind the tower, so if they do over extend behind the tower and try to kill you, you can ask your taemamtes to teleport as back up and get kills.

You just have to figure out a way to take last hits without dying if your teammates cant back you up. Going to the jungle as syllabear isnt a very good idea as unlike darkseer, you cant really farm it fast and you wont get the gold you need for your items. try going for mealstrom if you are really not doing well, but a radiance is always better if you can get it before 25mins since it allows you to play around with your petbear and farm other lanes, helps out in pushing out as well. Normally, your tower WILL get destoryed if you're playing against a hardcore tryhard 3 man stack lane, especially if they have heroes that can take down towers fast so it's not really a big issue. You need to focus on leveling up, do as much as you can to delay the inveitable death of tower while trying to survive. ALWAYS CHECK RUNE AS WELL WITH YOUR PET, makes the life of the middle guy easy when you're offlane.

Now for the safe lane, depending on what you are up against, for heroes without invisibility, get a tango, flask, 3 woodbranch, a stoutshield for petbear (or orb of venom first if you know what you are doing). Take last hits with your hero when you need to, and harass the shit out of the other guy with your petbear. if your creep wave is pushing out, use your pet bear to lure creeps, bear is one of the strongest safe lane 1v1 heroes as you have the highest base damage with hero + petbear. If you're up against an invis hero (bounty, brood, something irritating), you need to get a sentry. Aim for last hits if you can, and harass him when you're not last hitting. The safe way to play a safe lane syallabear is to always aim for last hits farm and deny, while poking to a minimum with your petbear, thus even when you're letting the opponent level, you're farming and denying everything. It's really up to how you want to play the game and how confident you are.

Solo middle invoker as exort is pretty easy, normally i'll get 3 woodbranch, a circlet and tango + flask to start with. Reason i'm going a +5 stats item starting build is because i want to get +hp, damage, mana and the most important reason, attack speed. It helps A LOT in last hitting if you can feel the difference having +5 stats and without.

So you'll want to block creeps so you can hold your creep at your slope (you can learn to control it over time). Anyway, basically you'll want to take last hits only (deny and farm), and screw up the opponents last hit momentum. Try to poke him as much as you can without getting harassed by him and the enemy creeps. I'll normally get exort, invoke, exort, quas, exort when i'm playing middle exort as higher level of exort = more damage from sunstrike = imbalance damage early game, allowing you to help out the other lanes as well and giving you more intel/damage for last hitting. When you're not last hitting, ALWAYS change to quas to regen if you aint full health, and instantly change to x3 exort to last hit when you need to, or when you're harassing, it's important to be able to fully control your quas/exort.

I will always try to look for holes and opportunities to kill the middle guy with a sunstrike and coldsnap + wack, you have to get used to how the opponent is moving tho to do it so it's going to take you awhile since you have to be able to read how they play.

Go for a 1-1-3-2 at level 7, it's important to have 1-1 in quas wex so you can have defeaning and meteor, very painful game changing combo. 1 stun + defeaning pretty much means death if you have a stun from your teammates.

Pretty much just get 4-1-4-2 at level 11 for double lava, items should be boots -> magic stick -> urn -> threads/forcestaff depending on whether you want to skip threads or not. gives good health, damage, mana regen.

That's pretty much it about playing middle as invoker.

Can't really give you much general tips on control and how to win mid lane as different people have different approach. If you want to be good at middle try to work your way up with good last hittings/denying, checking runes at 2 mins, bottle crowing and also knowing what you are up against. Knowing the cooldowns, damage, what can kill you and what you need to do to kill them helps a lot as well.

Originally posted by Croxist:

wanted to know how to play sylla as an offlaner

I'm gonna type a quick one because i'm too sleepy now but i'll do a long one soon. Always get stoutshield for your petbear, 3 woodbranch and 1 flask/tango for hero would be good. Then send bear to rune, check the rune (dont go near cliffs if theres a rubick at the opponent team, dont want to have your bear tossed up). Pull creep wave from the back while your hero maintain at a safe tower distance, do this even if it's in a 1v1 situation at offlane, so you get at least get level 2 and make them waste a tango tanking creep. When you're pulling the creeps if theres no heroes killing your bear you can block the 00:30 creep camp spawn first nearest to their lane, then pull it to you, but do not let the tower hit the creeps that you pulled, wait for your own creeps to reach the lane and let them meet so you wont be killing the creep wave too fast, the reasoning would be since you blocked their 00:30, you're more or less gonna get another wave coming at you, so you'll at least get 2 1/2 levels and near 3.

From here on it's pretty much a repeat with check runes, denying their creep pull (sending a bear to intercept their pulls) and not dying with good last hittings.

I did play a syllabear game today btw, was a pretty long game and i did explained a little on it.
And to add, always a good idea to get orb of venom in a 1v1 situation to harass the hell out of the opponent.

Good night!

Feel free to ask me anything about hero builds to how a certain hero should be played!