As you guys can tell from the little statistics board i've shown you, Night Stalker has been one of the most picked + banned heroes in the pro scene in 7.00+
Why is this you may ask? It's because as a roamer this hero is absolutely perfect at controling the early game tempo, and granting a massive vision advantage as well as having a powerful skill set to deal with annoying carries. An example i will give is morphling, a very weak laner and a hero that can be run over by silences which stop him from morphing. At max level in night time a 6 sec silence,YES 6 seconds this can litreally disable an entire hero in a teamfight and make him useless as well give you an amazing vision advantage with just his ultimate (without even aghs which is just ridiclous). Many teams fear him for that exact thing as well as his tankiness for a support like an ogre.
However that is just a second benefit to nightstalker as his true potential lies in roaming, as by roaming he can show his presence and win you at least 2/3 lanes if not all of them if successful in what he does. Now i will present to you the most efficient ways of doing this in a variety of different situations you'll encounter.
If your offlane has kill potential on the enemy carry or if he has high firepower, then you should prioritize him for the entire period of day time and bully out support to make sure he gets a good time to allow him to stay vs that carry solo even when you're roaming mid with hunter in the night.
If your safe lane is very weak and you are against a beefy offlaner that can zone your carry very easily you should help him out by either harassing or countinusely killing him forcing him to jungle so that your carry is able to have a free lane before night time.
If the enemy is zoning out your mid with lets say like a bane or ogre lvl 1 you should help zone that support out and then use the rest of the time to helping side lanes.
This is the more greedy but very effective way which is used when the lanes are very static and passive and when its hard to roam without night time, this is where you recognise it from lvl 1 buy an iron talon and go woods and farm until lvl 4 and night time with a 2-1-1 skill build where you have the ability to gank anywhere and stomping the game from there.
This is how you should use the first night time :
If the enemy carry is easily gankable like antimage, with night time you have a 3 second silence at lvl 1 + if you call upon 1 more support you should be able to do the job at killing him.
Feeding on supports who are trying to farm woods,grabing bounty runes, just generally punishing them and making it easier for the offlaner to harass the enemy carry out.
Switching between lanes to put pressure on the map and a factor of fear where the enemy team are fearful of showing on the map when you're not showing at you could jump over trees and kill them again and again, this by far is the most effective as it offers a very hard knock on effect for the rest of the night time where you gain a 4 minute advantage.
These steps should be repeated for as long as the laning stage depending on how easily it is to kill the enemy team and what roles they have in the game, who needs to be shutdown etc etc etc.
The next important step to success with this hero is his itemasation and what you need to get you through the first 15 minutes with an advanatage at your hand.
Item Build :
LVL 1 :
Orb of venom
Tangoes
sentry/obs (for dewarding or giving vision)
Mango
Progression (Before First Night):
Boots Of Speed
Wind Lace
+ orb of venom (previously acquired)
Getting Past The Lane Stage :
(If you are stomping but want to go late game go for a midas into an aghanism)
(If you are in an early game orientated draft consider Solar crest/helebard)
(If you're going for the game draft just go straight for urn + aghanism this will keep you going with the vision to win the midgame)
End Game :
This is pretty much your choice, what is needed in your scenario whether you need a hex vs antimage or if you need helebard vs morphling or octarine for pernemant night time it's mostly up to you, but remember late game your damage output if insane if you build even the smallest right click items.
This was just a scratching of the endless possibilities of Night Stalker As a hero Feel free to comment if you want me to write up something new or intresting, ideas are always noteworthy.
Feel free to upvote if you felt like this was a conclusive enough guide and you had some intrest in it.