* Heroes that can easily bypass Io's allies to get to Io: Riki, Tusk, Clinkz, Sniper

* Riki is known for being a successful support killer, and not just for show. He can give you one hell of a time by constantly picking you off and/or forcing you to stick close to the rest of the team.
* Smoke Screen is particularly devastating to Shadow Shaman. With neither his various disables nor a solid health pool Shadow Shaman is usually dead. Consider a force staff if you find yourself in this scenario (to force yourself out of the cloud before shackling Riki) and buy sentry wards if you have the money.

* Fragile heroes: Bounty Hunter has decent nuking capabilities with Shiruken Toss and Jinada thus making fragile heroes easy picks for ganking. Few examples of such heroes are:Crystal Maiden, Pugna, Skywrath Mage, Io, Witch Doctor, etc.

* Nyx Assassin, Bounty Hunter and Slark can all sneak up and kill you, Nyx being particularly deadly. Watch Slark carefully, as he can break either (but not both unless you are making a mistake) of your disables, with Dark Pact and leap out of a serpent ward ring. These heroes, however, rely heavily on escape and are themselves not very durable and none of them can survive a full lockdown with Mass Serpent Ward. Having Sentry Wards can turn you from prey to predator.

* With 4 active abilities, Shadow Shaman is weak against silencing foes such as silencer, Drow Ranger and Death Prophet.

* Heroes that are hard to gank: Axe, Death Prophet, Phantom Lancer

* Heroes that are hard to gank: Axe, Death Prophet, Phantom Lancer

* Pudge, Legion Commander and Axe will make the match a living hell for you, since they are known for surprise attacks from the fog and quickly killing low HP heroes. They can also interrupt your channeling, Legion being especially problematic, as she can use Press the Attack on an ally who is hexed as well.

* Reincarnation allows Wraith King to survive Shadow Shaman's initial chain of disables and Serpent Ward attacks.
* Short cooldown of Wraithfire Blast is ideal for interrupting Shackles.

* Ignite has long duration damage-over-time and prevents Io from healing his Tethered ally.

* Strafe and Searing Arrows allow Clinkz to quickly kill Io due to its low armor.

* Living Armor can be used to save a hero from a Relocate gank.

* Cold Embrace can render the extra attack speed from Overcharge meaningless.
* Splinter Blast and Winter's Curse are very affective against Io, as it has to stay close to its tethered hero.

* Due to their high attack speed, Summon Familiars will destroy Mass Serpent Ward quickly, granting Visage a massive amount of gold.
Additional:
* Due to their high attack speed, Visage's Summon Familiars will destroy Mass Serpent Ward quickly, granting Visage massive amount of gold.

* Mirana can disturb your channeling even if you are under the effect of invisibility thanks to Sacred Arrow.
* Mirana armed with an Aghanim's Scepter is known to be able to quickly burst down heroes - especially supports. Together with Ethereal Blade the bullying can continue for the whole match.

* Thirst allows Bloodseeker to see where Io relocated to, should either Io or the tethered hero have low health.
* Rupture forces Io to stay in place, preventing it from using the Tether bonus movement speed to escape.

* Lightning Storm will usually hit both Io and its tethered target since both will be close enough for the lightning to jump.
* Diabolic Edict and Pulse Nova hit all units near Leshrac, meaning he can do colossal damage to Io and its tethered target.
Additional:
* Lightning Storm will usually hit both Io and his Tethered target since both will be close enough for the lightning to jump. It can then be followed up by Split Earth.
* Diabolic Edict and Pulse Nova hit all units near Leshrac, meaning he can do colossal damage to Io and his Tethered target.

* Shadow Shaman has no effective burst damage, thus Chen has a lot of time to save an ally with his creeps or Hand of God from a gank.
* Chen can use {U:Centaur Conqueror} or {U:Mud Golem} to interrupt Shadow shaman's Shackles channeling
* Mass Serpent Ward can be easily teared down by Chen's creep army

* Dragon Knight can simply tank and destroy all Shadow Shaman's Serpent Wards.

* Glimpse directly negates Relocate.
Additional:
* Disruptor can always Glimpse back Io or his target after he Relocated nearby.
* Even better, thanks to the indicator on the ground, you can even preemptively drop Static Storm and Kinetic Field on the spot they will relocate to.
* Thunder Strike and Glimpse are also good tools to bring back an Io that Tethered away in the fog of war.

* Lich's Chain Frost forces Io to give up providing buff to his ally with Tether or suffer devastating damage with his tethered ally.
* Lich could easily use Sinister Gaze to disable Io from getting away with Tether or Relocate.

* Heroes with channeled abilities which Assassinate may cancel at long range: Witch Doctor, Crystal Maiden, Shadow Shaman, Pugna

* Take Aim and Assassinate allow Sniper to reach Io even if it stays in the backline.

* Waveform allows Morphling to escape from Mass Serpent Ward
* Morphling can interrupt Shadow Shaman while he is shackling an ally with Adaptive Strike (Strength).
* With Ethereal Blade Morphling can quickly burst him down before he even has a chance to react.

* Grimstroke can catch Io and his ally easily with SoulBind as Io has a tendency to tether himself with an ally frequently.
* Io is highly vulnerable to disables. Hence, Grimstroke's Phantom's Embrace is a great ability to hinder Io's potential.
Additional:
* Soulbind can target both Io and its Tethered ally, allowing Grimstroke and his team to target both with single target spells. Should Io try to Relocate, Phantom's Embrace can stop its channel to prevent escape.

* Phantom Strike allows Phantom Assassin jump directly to Io.
* Coup de Grace makes short work of Io's low health and armor.

* Quill Spray is very effective against Io, as it has very low armor and has to stay close to the fight to not break its Tether.

* Heroes with low armor and little mobility, like Huskar, Io, etc. will also have an unfortunate fate.

* Support heroes with low mobility can be slowed further by Incapacitating Bite, and swarmed by Spiderlings for an easy kill: Shadow Shaman, Visage, Dazzle, Rubick, Lich.

* Nyx Assassin, Bounty Hunter and Slark can all sneak up and kill you, Nyx being particularly deadly. Watch Slark carefully, as he can break either (but not both unless you are making a mistake) of your disables, with Dark Pact and leap out of a serpent ward ring. These heroes, however, rely heavily on escape and are themselves not very durable and none of them can survive a full lockdown with Mass Serpent Ward. Having Sentry Wards can turn you from prey to predator.

* Omniknight can dispel Hex or Shackles with Heavenly Grace. He can also heal teammates which you disabled. The same goes to Abaddon's Aphotic Shield .

* Lone Druid's early game is good against slow, squishy supports since his bear is very strong early game and an Entangling Claws proc almost always guarantees a kill: Ancient Apparition, Crystal Maiden, Shadow Shaman, Skywrath Mage etc.

* Arc Warden with his Magnetic Field will protect allies from Mass Serpent Ward.

* Single-target disablers will have difficulty locking down a Chaos Knight with Phantasm active: Bane, Beastmaster, Bloodseeker, Clockwerk, Doom, Shadow Shaman.

* Heroes that are squishy by nature are an easy target for Spirit Breaker: Sniper, Drow Ranger, Shadow Shaman

* Charge of Darkness can be used to escape or counter-initiate against a Relocate gank.
* Greater Bash and Nether Strike is devastating due to Io's low armor, and can even knock it away from tethered target.

* Omniknight can dispel Hex or Shackles with Heavenly Grace. He can also heal teammates which you disabled. The same goes to Abaddon's Aphotic Shield .

* Squishy heroes (Io, Crystal Maiden, Lina...), as Earth Spirit can deal tons of damage with Magnetize.

* With 4 active abilities, Shadow Shaman is weak against silencing foes such as silencer, Drow Ranger and Death Prophet.

* Heroes that can easily bypass Io's allies to get to Io: Riki, Tusk, Clinkz, Sniper

* Heroes that are hard to gank: Axe, Death Prophet, Phantom Lancer

* Nyx Assassin, Bounty Hunter and Slark can all sneak up and kill you, Nyx being particularly deadly. Watch Slark carefully, as he can break either (but not both unless you are making a mistake) of your disables, with Dark Pact and leap out of a serpent ward ring. These heroes, however, rely heavily on escape and are themselves not very durable and none of them can survive a full lockdown with Mass Serpent Ward. Having Sentry Wards can turn you from prey to predator.

* Squishy heroes, usually supports, like Io, Ancient Apparition, Keeper of the Light etc can die instantly from Tiny's magic burst.

* Ice Blast prevents Io from healing the target.
Additional:
* Ice Blast prevents Io from healing an ally with Tether and prevents healing from Overcharge
* Io is a common Mekansm builder which is useless if he is affected by Ice Blast.

* Lucent Beam can cancel Tether and Relocate.
* Moon Glaives and Eclipse make short work of Io and its tethered ally.