Darchrow ,The Enigma DOTA Hero, The Guide.

Dark Crow -Enigma

Pros

Works very well with a lot of AOE heroes
Good AOE Damage.
Can turn the game around completely with one good blackhole.
Good Gank Hero.
Can Jungle right at 30 seconds, hence ZERO competition farming early.
Out leveling and farming faster than the solo hero early.
Item independent aside from his blink.

Cons:
Slow attack/casting animation.
Channeling ultimate.

Basic Info:

17 + 2.1
14 + 1.0
20 + 3.4

Advanced Statistics

Attack Animation: 0.4 / 0.77
Damage: 42 - 48
Casting Animation: 0.3 / 0.51
Armor: 4
Base Attack Time: 1.7
Movespeed: 300
Missile Speed: 900
Attack Range: 500
Sight Range: 1800 / 800

Abilities:

Malefice:

Your core chasing ability and stun, use this to initiate in ganks. 6 Seconds of small stuns will grant you and your allies a lot of free hits. Good for getaway ability as well.

Demonic Conversion:

Since the change in 6.59, Enigma's Demonic Conversion, his farming ability has gone up the roof. Not only the eidolons are great for farming, but they do hit hard enough to become lethal.

Convertible and non-Convertible Creeps:



Ghouls and Treants
Invoker: Forge Spirit
Nerubian Weaver: Beetles
Beastermaster: Quilbeast and Hawk
Visage: Revenants
Broodmother: Spiderlings
Enchantress/Chen: Critters below lvl 5
Helm of the Dominator: Critters below lvl 5
Lycanthrope: Summon Wolfs
Furion: Treants

You can deny and creep Meat Wagons and Glaive Throwers. Easy Instant 75 Gold.

Non-convertible Creeps:

Warlock: Inferno
Necronomicron: Summons
Panda: Primal Split (Storm, Earth and Fire)

Midnight Pulse:

Combo it with Malefice or Backhole, and your enemies take 36% (after resistance) of their maximum health. When using this ability, Always combine this with a slow or disable (Fissure, Stun, Cold Arrows etc.) 25 second cooldown does not make this spammable.

Backhole:

Yea, yea, your most devastating skill. 500 Aoe of silence and damage. 4 Seconds of Silence.

Landing that Blackhole:

In general, when deciding to cast blackhole, consider these factors:
1) How many are missing on the minimap?
2) I can only get some heroes (ex. 3 of 4 or 2 of 3), will it be an issue?
3) Can I safely cast Midnight Pulse before blackhole?
Then conclude by asking, what is the chance that I can land an uninterrupted blackhole?

Early Game:

If someone forest ganks you: (Shouldn't happen with map awareness, scouts, and wards)
If you have 3 to 6 eidolons, you may be able to kill them. Pretend to run, while the eidolons are hitting them. Then if you think they are at killable range, use blackhole. Eidolons do 48 normal damage per hit, they hurt!

Lane Ganking:
So right after lvl 6-7, you should get out of the jungle and gank with an ally. You need at least 1 ally with you. If it is a 2 on 2, whenever you have a chance to grab both players, stun the one further out (or save the stun for cleanup), and just land blackhole (should catch both in the Bhole, don't worry about AoE bonus damage range). If you have the extra mana, you can summon eidolons before blackhole.

Mid and Late Game:

Initiating with Blackhole:
This can be done probably til mid game. Basically you charge in and blackhole. Don't ever charge in uphill when there's no vision.
In late game enemies are well aware to spread out, hence not so ideal to purely initiate with blink blackhole.

Surprise Blackholes:
This one is simple. Never stay in sight (staying uphill or around the forest). Your allies are in lane pushing/defending a push. Blink in at the right time and score big. With enough allies, you may not need to midnight pulse if you are scared of getting disabled.

"Late Arrival" Blackholes:
Not recommended but it can work. Your team fight a 4v4 or 4v5 battle while you are halfway across the map. As the battle goes on, opponents chase and your allies back. As they chase, they clutter together. Pop right in, and counter hard.

"Spam around" and Blackhole:
Basically, the idea is that Enigma spams his disable(s) and malefice before the fight. Then once the main fight comes, you just blackhole.

Probably this is the most realistic way to blackhole - Why?
Opponents know to split apart, they will likely be far apart from each other before a fight, hence impossible to just simply blink bhole. When the big fight begins, it is where enemies may lose their positioning and more likely to be grouped up, or their disable hero's is dead/cooldown/silenced.

Enigma's Ability Choice:



1 Conversion 1
2 Malefice 1
3 Conversion 2
4 Malefice 2
5 Malefice 3 / Conversion 3
6 Blackhole 1
7 Malefice 4 / Conversion 3
8 Malefice 4 / Conversion 3
9 Midnight Pulse 1
10 Midnight Pulse 2
11 Blackhole 2
12 Midnight Pulse 3
13 Midnight Pulse 4
14 Stats Point
15 Stat
16 Blackhole 3
17- 24 Stat
25 Conversion 4

So, you get conversion first to convert the creeps. At level 5, it really depends on what you want. If you want to finish blink dagger quickly, then getting the level 3 eidolons; however, if you can set up a gank with your allies, then it get level 3 malefice.

Questions/Challenges for ability Choice

I can jungle fine with Conversion lvl 2, is Conversion lvl 3 necessary?
You can get the blink dagger faster, shreds around 2-3 minutes compare to lvl 2 conversion. You need to jungle farm hard early to get your gear. There is less microing (for those that have trouble).

lvl 3 conversion can kill most neutral camps by auto-attacking with no microing, while lvl 2 can't. I can micro, so what? When you are ganking, fleeing, walking, along the way, you can just convert and leave, and collect your gold.

Sometimes I skip level 3 conversion because I gank and need the level 4 malefice at level 7, and by the time I revisit jungle I am around lvl 9-10, at this point might as skip conversion level 3.

Level 4 Conversion - They hit hard and farm EVEN faster, why not?
In early/mid game, they are amazing in fights. Probably after 30 minutes, they are just free farms for the opponent (even if u move them away). Might as well invest in a stat point.

In Pubs: Get lvl 4 no problem.

Stats? - it helps survivability
Enigma has great survivability with its core items and skill. If you are going to get focused down by 3 heroes you have no hope. But if there are 1-2 heroes on you, you got blink, stun, phase boots, and hopefully a secondary disable from sheep or orchid, which is usually adequate for survival.

If you are frustrated that a burst damage hero (ex Lion) is picking you off constantly, then feel skip Midnight Pulse early.

But Midnight Pulse deals like 30 damage at level 10, Why not Stats?
True, but you don't use this ability until level 12-13, due to mana issues and its effectiveness. However, it needs to be maxed out by level 13. At lvl 13 onwards, you should be going around (with 1-2 allies) and picking off junglers and lone lane farmers. With midnight pulse, stun and auto attack, probably you are dealing 30%-60% of the damage. If midnight pulse isn't used, you are only doing around 20-40% of the damage. So Midnight Pulse forces a faster and more guaranteed kill, hence an earlier escape to avoid counter ganked.

Leveling Blackhole @ lvl 11 & 16?
If you are building Sheep / Orchid / Necronomicron etc. I'd say yes, because you will have a large mana pool, and Enigma's mana growth is not bad. If you are working on BKB with no extra increase in mana pool, probably not. The duration for blackhole is the same for all 3 levels, the only difference is damage and cooldown.

Early Game:
Warding:

Enigma's is clearly the designated ward bitch, since he is support and farms well.



Warding Rune Spot - Always, especially if your mid solo has a bottle.
Warding "Pull Spot" - Help your allies, its a team game.
Warded "Pull Spot" - So the jungle has one less spawnspots, doesn't matter because you have 2 solo lanes in your team. You can't farm over 3 spots a minute anyway for the first 6 minutes.
Warding Jungle/River - Comes later when opponent can farm jungle

Advanced:
Sentry Wards - Depending on the competitiveness of the game. If they warded your jungle, you will have a hard time coming out and gank. Some games you just got to start with sentry wards + clarities (+ chicken), because Scourge can ward 2 camps with 1 ward. You can't jungle and gank.
Warding Uphill / Behind Towers - It is good to have the uphill vision. Extra vision gives Enigma better decision when to blackhole. Opponents may think staying uphill or behind the tower. This doesn't happen in low level games, ignore this if your game doesn't have a 5v5 teamfight at almost every tower.

Neutral Creeping:
Jungling with Enigma and Eidolons:
I am not writing a guide on how to jungle with Enigma, all I can say is.
1) Micro the Eidolons - its not hard like Chen and Beastmaster
2) Don't get damaged - Centaur's stun, Furbolg's claps, Sytar's Shockwave, or just physical damage in general. Knocking off your clarities is not good.
3) You can use demonic conversion on your eidolons, hence you can farm the mud golems even when your eidolons are expiring.

Advanced: Jungling in Enemy Turf:

Do this only if you have high map awareness.
If you are Sentinal, farming in Scourge Jungle:
Jungling in scourge's jungle is fairly safe. You can jungle 4 spots basically, be careful when you are jungling downhill, position eidolon properly to get uphill vision. You can gank mid pretty easy. Try to bring 6 full hp eidolon for a clean kill at mid.



If you are scourge, farming in Sentinel Jungle:
I think that you are relatively safe in 3 spots, it is harder than , not really recommended. Again, at the small camp, position eidolons to have uphill vision. If the sentinal bought wards, it makes it even harder to farm/escape.


Jungle & Map Awareness:

Jungle and map awareness are crucial to your early game. If you are from sentinel (scourge), enemies from bottom (top) can easily intrude and gank you. Enigma needs to gank the enemies at bottom for sentinel (top for scourge), not let your enemies gank you.

Don't rely on your ally to call missing, Watch the minimap at all times. When in doubt, send eidolons at entrance points. If you send two in early game, opponents will get hurt if they try to farm it, and they will quickly realize that it is not worth killing them.

Rune Control:



If Enigma is jungling, send one of the eidolons at the rune spot. Time it right, eidolons lasts 35 seconds, Enigma is not so rune dependent, if an ally needs the rune, give priority to your teammates. Also, you can walk to the rune and check.

Pulling Creeps:

Likely you will not run out of mana, if you do (maybe unlucky interrupted clarities, or you needed to stun an enemy), you can pull the creeps at bottom sent/top scourge. Also, you can save mana, force creep wave closer to your own tower, and then gank.

Advanced - While you are jungling one camp, one eidolon goes to the "pull spot" and pulls the neutrals to lane, hence clearing camps faster, and giving better lane control for allies. You will be EXP'ing/farming faster.

Item Build:

Starting Items:



Mainly you need mana regeneration bonus, your mana pool will get big enough since he has decent int growth.

etc.

In my opinion this is very standard. Sobis can be turned into refresher, orchid, RoB or vlads.

If you want to rush void stone with no Sobis:



This build will give you enough mana to get to 875 gold.
You need to stay out of damage at all times.
Usually by the 4th or 5th clarity will get you the void stone.

Easier Starting build for those with bad micro



Recover from getting hurt, your eidolons tank harder.
Make sure the ring's has the aura on creeps also.


Miscellenous Starting Items and Talk





Clarities are necessary, with 2 Sobi mask can only make you sustainably converting every 35-50 seconds. If you want to gank, u need the extra mana. Flasks are just for replenishing residual ganking damages.



The 6 item slot limit can become problematic, personally, I wouldn't get any of these for early. You need 3 slots for Blink, Boots and Portal alone. 4th and 5th slots are usually for mana regen like RoB/sobis/void stone and HP regen items Flask/Tangos, it leaves you 1 to 0 Slot.

Just about any 2nd/3rd Core Item you build will give you stats (Ogre Axe, Ultimate Orb etc.). I'd say 1 Bracer Max early game. Late Game If you have a slot and unable to farm up then Stack 2-3 Bracers.



Since Enigma is a natural roamer, if your solo is not so rune dependent, like silencer, Keeper etc. Instead of him trying to deny opponent's rune hunt, turn this into your job. With a bottle, you need less clarities, flasks and sobi(s)



Jungling with Magic Sick and Magic Wand

Neutral creeps spell will add charges to your magic stick!
Centaur Clapping
Panda Stomping (Sometimes twice)
Sytar Shockwaving (Likely twice)
Troll's raise dead.

Gank Detection (1600 Range): See your charge just gone up for no reason?
NA invising, Necro Healing, Windrunner windrunning, whatever.

Managing Maximum Item Slots

One problem that Enigma faces is that he can run out of item slots in Early/Mid Game, when items aren't completed. Bracer(s) are nice, but you barely have room for one.

Typical Item Builds:







No Room to put up sentries wards at times. You are likely to buy wards for your team.

If you aren't carrying TPs you are a bad player, start carrying one.

Core Item #1: Kelen's Dagger (8-15 minutes)

After you get your void stone and/or sobi(s), farm straight for blink (before boots). This item is core on enigma. This item is core on him, no argument here.

Upgrading Boots: (15-40 minute):

Since the change of Blink Dagger of Escape, with a higher ms and your ministun can escort you to safety



Phase Boots - 1,550 Gold

Good for chase and flee. Buy this after (or during) your finish your 2nd Core Item. There is a general belief that enigma is slow, but his MS is really 300ms. With phase boots, he is a whooping 370 / 407 (phased) ms, out running the typical 350 ms heroes by far, hence creating space to blink.

Boots of Travel - 2,700 Gold

Enigma can run into slots problem, Travel can save you a slot if needed. Enigma sure has no trouble farming to a boots of travel. It is a great item to teleport and cast your spells. If this item is used for constant farming, your carries may be left nothing to farm. Use with caution. Many times I see Enigma higher level and better equiped than the carry.


Core Item #2 & #3: (20-50 minute):

I believe there is no definite "Next Core Item" for Enigma, as every case is different.

Items to Consider:



Since Enigma has tremendous power in farming, I see that mostly people build protective items on enigma. I personally believe that building a disable early is more devastating than building protective items.

Orchid Malevolence - 5,025 Gold

In mid game, when enigma goes around and gank, what does he do? Blink, Stun, Pulse, hit, hit, hit. Why not give him a bit more dps if that is all he is doing. Also, its a 5 second silence. If you got 2 sobi mask in the beginning it is a great item to get.

I believe this item is excellent on enigma. The other popular orchid heroes are Enchantress and Furion. I see that some people like to say "I like to rape that no HP Furion/Enchantress", but Enigma is very different than those Furion and Enchantress. Those do not have a stun or blink.

Pros:
Enchances ganking ability
Easier build-up than Hex.
Surprise with much higher DPS
Make use of your Sobi Masks

Cons:
No HP bonus.
Kind of Awkward on a non-DPS hero, nevertheless it is a disable item.

Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse (Sheep Stick) - 5,675 Gold

Superb disable, superior item if it is acquired early. The use is just like Orchid when you are ganking, see above. I personally find orchid slightly better than sheep if you are going to farm it as your 2nd core item. If you are having trouble farming it up, get level 4 demonic conversion to speed up.

Pros:
Provides HP
Fully disables + slows

Con:
Farming the Mystic Staff and Ultimate Orb
n00bs can't find/don't notice the Sheep

Necronomicron - 2,750/4,050/5,350 Gold

If they have invisible units, this is a great item to get. Pop it right before blackhole. Mana Burn and Feedback.

Pros:
True Sight, sees invisible units and wards
9% Attack & Move Speed Bonus Aura.
They hit hard, plus Mana burn and Feedback
Does more damage than Dagon in a blackhole combo.

Cons:
More Micromanagement
Can be purged and enchanted, instant 100 gold bounty.

Black King Bar - 3,900 Gold

Get this if their team has at least 4 people that can disable your channeling, or your blackhole got interrupted at least twice within the first 20 minutes of the game, given that your blackhole was decent. (say, lion comes out of the forest and disables you, not exactly your fault).
You are guaranteed to cast Midnight Pulse before blackhole with BKB. Always cast Midnight Pulse before Blackholing.

Pros:
Uninterrupted Blackholes, most likely
0 Mana Cost
Better Survival
Guaranteed 36% damage AOE Midnight Pulse

Cons:
No HP/Mana Regen
More or less only Blackhole-devoted use.
Does not stop AOE silence

Refresher Orb - 5,300 Gold

With Enigma's mana pool, there is no mana issue. If you want to play more blackhole-devoted enigma, then refresher is good, basically you have an 8 second AOE.

Pros:

Refreshes your Linken's and BKB

Cons:

Being blackhole dependent playstyle can be bad because if blackhole gets interrupted you die, it means that you couldn't position enemies the way you want them, and your refresher never went off.
Might need to watch the mana if you are going to cast spells on top of Blackhole.


Optional Items:

Mekansm - 2,306 Gold

Good Supporting Item.
Not refreshable (if you get refresher)

Linken's Sphere - 5,175 Gold

With the improved Linken's Sphere, it is sure to block more spells, grants greater survivability. In a team fight, this thing will constantly be on cooldown. On paper it seems good item, but if you are competent enough to land quality blackholes, I recommend skipping it.

I would get this when there is Bane or Doom on enemy's team.

Pros:
Block Spells during Blackhole
Replenish HP/Mana, Good Stats
Blocks Many targetted Ults, unlike BKB.

Cons:
Might be on constant cooldown even from non-stun spells
Not all spells are protected.
Some spells have poor interaction with Linkens (Needs to know which ones)
Linkens will go off on weak targetted spells.

Personal Builds:

These are just builds that I go with, feel free to critique. Items are generally built in order, other than the boot upgrade and the mana regen items. Most of the time I don't finish these items but it is just a guideline
Typical Build


Serious Build


Countering/Controlling SA Build



Item Questions/Challenges:
Black King Bar or Linken's?
In most cases, BKB is better. If you have a linkens, in a "prefight", team exchanges some spells, linkens is likely on cooldown. So at that instance, are you really using Linkens for the blackhole?

I recommend that you get linkens when you they have Doom or Bane, because BKB does not fully block these spells.

Boots before blink?
Early boots is a huge advantage, especially setting up blackhole @ lvl 6. Only problem is that slows your way to your blink dagger. If you die a few times and your gold hover in the mid 1000s. I am not rejecting boots before blink, this is up to you.

Depending on the level of competitiveness of the game.
Higher up = Boots + chick + crow + obs + tps + clarities before the blink (20 minutes in)
Lower = Straight farm blink, maybe 0-4 wards within first 10 minutes.

If I went broke - What can I do?
If this happens to you. your ending items should be these:
+
Enigma can get killed in every team fight, the rest of the game is not fun. If you are in that case, just minimize your farming and let your carries carry your team. Probably get 3 Bracers, if you start to get out of bankruptcy, try to go for ogre axe. If your team is coming back hard then farm your BKB, but if you keep dying and your gold isn't going over 500, then buy tps for your teammates, buy obs, buy sentries. Make sure to buy before every team fight, macro the shop. I have listed 7 items on top, try to ask teammates to set the wards.

Specific Situational Items:

Got several melee carries and dps? Have a sobi mask/RoB already? Enigma himself benefits little from this, but 15% damage Aura, 16% Lifeleech and 5 Armor Aura is sure not to be underlooked to support your allies.

Normally Enigma does not get Hood of Defiance. From what I am seeing it is a really good push item, granting protection as you break rax.
You are a support hero and you might be the candidate to buy this.

Only for against warlocks. You can farm this much faster than anyone on your team. You might get this by the second or third inferno drop, and the warlock will sure be bored the next 40 minutes. Since with the change in 6.60, there are 16 (8 + 8) purge charges, you don't need to save charges purely for infernos. Diffusal charges can be spent on ganks and escapes as well. If you want, skip blink and get this first, farm every inferno possible. The warlock will feed you will to a blink in no time.
This is not theorycraft, I asked my teammate to farm Diff on him many times before.

Late game luxury:



Heart of Tarrasque: Lets say you went a no HP Build, Phase Boots, Sheep/Orchid and Blink etc. A bit of extra HP for late game survival would be nice.

Shiva's Guard: Combos with Blackhole nicely, also increases enigma's survivability late game. This is a late game luxury because it is better getting sheep stick if u can farm the mystic staff. Get this after a Sheep / Orchid earliest.

Rejected Items:

Personally I have seen these on Enigma, these items are plain horrible.



Power Treads: I have seen this many times, even in TDA. Phase boot for chase and escape + blink. Period.

Bloodstone: For 125 gold More, you can get a Linken's Sphere, which probably provides more survivability than bloodstone. Linken's helps your blackhole and blink at the very least. Also, in any serious game, it is only the carry that gets bloodstone. Enigma does not net much kills, hence it is rejected.

Pub Stomp Build:

Okay, not everyone here plays clan war, vouch leagues or even open leagues, so I will talk about 2 pub builds that I go with enigma. Personally, I wouldn't play enigma in a pub because many pubbies are unaware of blackholing, even if you ping. A lot of misclicks during blackhole, stacking stuns etc.

If you want to go trash a pub, go try these 2 builds:

Pub Build #1: Quradruple Nuke

OR

Explanation

Enigma simply blinks in, Stun, Midnight Pulse, then Blackhole. After that you just Dagon. Since in pubs, u don't really have to save the blackhole. Roam around and keep doing this. If they are low enough you don't need to waste blackhole. If you are doing well, get a bloodstone to get charges. Necronomicron should deal more damage than a dagon, but it is a matter of micromanagement.

Pub Build #2: Evil Battle Build Pub Enigma:

OR

Explanation

Enigma can do well in a pub with a battle build.

Basically, you just hit them, when they flee, you cast Malefice, then hit hit hit hit hit! The Mask of Madness gives you the extra movement speed and attack speed, MKB / Buriza gives you more dps. Switch treads to any attribute depending on situation.

In this build, Midnight Pulse and Blink Dagger are optional.

Biggest Mistakes that A lot of Enigma Makes:

Major Mistakes

Over farming - Yes, you can farm very hard, dota isn't about farming. You are not the carry, leave the farm for the carry once you get your necessary items. Being higher level with more cs than your carries while losing the game is nothing to be proud of.
Jungling Forever - You can probably net 2 kills before level 6 by coming to lane. Afk farming the entire first 30 minutes is totally unacceptable.
Only engage when your blackhole is up - So, you stay friendly unless blackhole up.
Blink + Blackhole = fights
Blink + Stun + Disable = ganks
Enigma needs to be constantly ganking, don't ever sit back and wait for blackhole. Exception to this is late game pushes, which are "fights"
not farming Blink Dagger - Read a bad pub guide and they'll give you reasons not to get blink dagger, there is no argument about this here please.

Minor Mistakes

Not checking runes - and retroactively, taking all the runes might be just as bad. Rune control is part of the game, you are closet to the rune, no excuse.
Take a rune and not gank
Blackholing to save yourself - If you are gonna die, just die, don't put a bhole up trying to stall 5 seconds, the enemy hero is pulled very close towards you afterwards.
Sending 3 eidolons to scout one place - split split split!
Not scouting with Eidolons - They are slow and feeds enemy, but could save lives
When pushing a tower, send eidolons to scout the hills, forests and move them up front to give vision ahead.
Unattended Auto-Attacking Eidolons - It pushes creepwave out. Pushed out lanes are hard to farm and make allies vulernable. You might only get 30% of the last hits with the eidolons autoattacking.
Not casting midnight pulse before blackhole, given it was safe - Be aware who can disable, who is GOING to disable you. To me, this is an instinct, make that decision instantly.


If u blink and get stuck in trees, use your midnight pulse to get out.

Good Openers for you to set up blackhole:


Krobelus - A+

Silence: Once she silences, you blink in and land your black hole. She spams carrion swarm and Exorcism's Ghosts rape enemies helplessly.

Puck - A+

Initiate with Illusionary Orb, then Waning Rift. Enigma blinks in and Midnight Pulse + Blackhole. After blackhole is over, use dream coil to finish off enemies.

Tidehunter - B+

Good Initiating, but not everyone will be 600 range AoE when Tidehunter charges in. (Tide's AoE is 850/950/1050). Not the best chemistry but it can work out.

Most Devastating Blackhole Butt Buddies:




- Dark Seer

Just about every one of his spell help. He copies of a crapload of heroes, ion shell burning, vacuum to initiate or pulling them deeper into the blackhole. Speed to chase off survivors.

- Zues

Spam Static - 11% static 3-5 times in 4 seconds is not fun for enemies.

- Stealth Assassin

SA does a really good job ganking with Enigma. His invisibility is an asset when roaming with Enigma. SA can get a lot more hits whiles Enigma stuns first. SA can go deso rather than diffusal when paired with Enigma.
Blackhole - Free hits for 4 seconds is pretty deadly coming from SA, Cloud prolongs the AOE silence. Then he's a good finisher to finish those that got out alive.

- Magnataur

Pretty Obvious synergy here. One advice, Enigma black holes first, then Mag spams his wave. Empower, hit, hit, then ULT. etc. Reversing the order of initiating is fine, but Enigma has a bigger AoE, just never stack their ults together.


Decent Allies - Self Explanatory



So basically, just about every good/useful hero.

Enigma's most feared heroes:



Nerubian Assassin
(especially mid solo) - obviously NA is a ganking hero, he will scout for you. With his triple nuke and dagon in mid game, he has a good chance of killing you if you are caught jungling.

Possible Counters:
If he comes for you @ lvl 6-8, If you have 3-6 eidolons and a stun/bhole, u can probably counter him because of his low HP.
Wards: He does not have perma invis, he may go invis at the entrance point, so it is likely that you an see him with a ward.

Antimage - Magina
He takes your mana away, you can't blink, you got large mana pool for his ult to hurt a lot.

Possible Counters:
None - Sheep/Silence/Stun and run away, but likely he can still catch up to you.

Broodmother
Don't think you can get out once he touches you with his 40% slow, unless you have your team around. He has at least 20% bonus ms.

Possible Counters:
None - Sheep/Silence and run away
Dust him in a teamfight

- Stealth Assassin
He can cloud, backstab and you are paper shredded before you cast a spell. The nature of SA is to scout around and pick off the weaker heroes, especially enigma, which he can do a good job on.

Possible Counters:
Necronomicron 3 - true sight, SA is pretty easy to get picked off due to his low hp. Enigma and his summons deal a lot of damage to him (but unlikely to finish him off 1v1). Prior to big battles (4v4 or more), you activate the book and you might see SA wandering around up front etc. Therefore, SA being a threat only if there is no necronomicron. On a side note, always carry dust, there is a cooldown to the book.
Orchid - Get this after Necronomicron. For 5 seconds, SA will be silenced hence being visible and can't blink away. (The silence is longer than sheep)

-
Doom Bringer

Just about everything can go wrong with Doom Bringer on the other side.
Scorched Earth - You can't blink, he spams it everywhere
LVL ? Death - Has a ministun, stops your channel
Doom - It will silence you even you have Black King Bar
Aghanims Scepter - Doom's cooldown is 70 seconds, while your blackhole is cooldown is 180. It is likely that you will die with LVL + Doom.

Possible Counters:
Linken's Sphere - Blocks his Doom and LVL ? Death completely.
Stay out of sight - Don't bother going around stunning and silencing. Not worth it.

Clockwerk Goblin
He is a ganker, when he does his combo you have no way out, it is guaranteed death. He ruins your blackhole with his ministun.

Countering Enigma:



+ OR +
If he is not caught inside the bhole, his stun is far enough to cancel your ult (seen it, needs confirmation on the distance). If he gets a BKB, he can get out of your blackhole and just his stun, or bash you to stop your channel. Hence even if Enig has BKB he is not safe from Slardar. BKB is common amongst slardar, expect to see this sometimes.

AoE Silence

BKB and Linkens will not get your way out of global silence or AOE silences



With Silencer attempting to work its way in the tier 1 pool nowadays, he is sure to be regarded a versatile counter to Enigma. You cannot "combo" at all with his Last Word's aura. Just simply Blackhole, no midnight pulse or stun. Make sure to check the level of his Last word.



Along with other who can silence/ministun from far range

Not so noticeable ministuns:



I am not listing obvious stun/disables spells like hellfire blast, frostbite, impale etc.