* Shadow Shaman's many disables can lock down Weaver. Even with Linken's Sphere, Weaver might not be able to escape should Shadow Shaman uses Shackles quickly enough following Hex.
* Mass Serpent Ward can make short work of Weaver once he is locked down.

* The long silence of Crippling Fear at night prevents Weaver from using his Shukuchi or Time Lapse.
* With Dark Ascension and Gem of True Sight, Night Stalker can easily find and probably kill Weaver.
* Hunter In the Night's attack speed bonus removes The Swarm's beetles very quickly.

* Any hero who can counter-initiate in anticipation without getting caught in Reverse Polarity: Sven, Omniknight, Enigma, Luna, Naga Siren, Mars, Jakiro, Venomancer, Elder Titan, Faceless Void, Rubick, Keeper of the Light, Pugna, Invoker, Spectre, Alchemist, Treant Protector, Lina, Oracle, Zeus, Shadow Shaman, Phoenix, Razor, Huskar, Batrider, Kunkka, Tidehunter, Wraith King, Sand King.

* Dark Ascension reduces vision for the enemy team, which makes it more difficult for Magnus to initiate with Blink Dagger and Reverse Polarity. It is also more likely that Night Stalker will scout out Magnus with Aghanim's Scepter and a Gem of True Sight, after which he can silence Magnus with Crippling Fear.

* Crippling Fear is a good way to shut down and gank Invoker in the early game..
* Void deals good damage to Invoker and makes escaping harder.
* With Hunter in the Night and Void, Invoker can't get away from Night Stalker and won't be able to catch him with Sun Strike during the night.

* Heroes with long lockdowns: Shadow Shaman, Legion Commander.

* Heroes with channeling spells because Shadow Fiend has nothing to cancel channeling: Bane, Enigma, Pudge, Shadow Shaman.

* Void can be used to cancel Requiem of Souls.
* Crippling Fear prevents Shadow Fiend from using Shadowraze or Requiem of Souls.
* With Dark Ascension and Gem of True Sight, Night Stalker can find and kill Shadow Fiend easily. He is also a tanky hero that can fight Shadow Fiend at any stage of the game.

* Night Stalker has a huge, almost instant silence through Crippling Fear. The main problem is that he can get it off while Queen of Pain barely has any vision of him if he creeps up to her during Dark Ascension. She'll have to play very carefully before she gets a Black King Bar or a Eul's Scepter of Divinity.

* In general, squishy heroes that rely on escape often struggles against the amount of disables Shadow Shaman can bring. Queen of Pain, Anti-Mage and Storm Spirit are among these.

Additional:
* Shadow Shaman has many disables to lock down Queen of Pain, preventing her from Blinking away, even through Linken's Sphere or her spell block talent.
* Mass Serpent Ward can tear through Queen of Pain's low health pool once she's locked down by Hex & Shackles.

* Crippling Fear is a silence that can last up to 8 seconds during night, rendering Storm Spirit tied limited to his items in a fight.
* Dark Ascension allows Night Stalker to initiate on Storm Spirit across the impassable terrain around the middle lane, rendering Storm vulnerable in the early game and prevent him from snowballing.
Additional:
* Storm Spirit is absolutely helpless if caught within Night Stalker's silence range.
* Common items a Storm Spirit will build will not remove the AoE silence.

* Any heroes with stuns or silences: Death Prophet, Lion, Shadow Shaman, Skywrath Mage

* Heroes with silence and mana drain abilites, as Ancient Apparition relies entirely on his abilities: Invoker, Silencer, Nyx Assassin, Skywrath Mage, Shadow Shaman, Lion and etc.

* Heroes with mobility/escape mechanisms to dodge Ancient Apparition abilites, or to easily jump on him: Riki, Queen of Pain, Phantom Assassin, Windranger, Bounty Hunter, Spirit Breaker, Night Stalker, Storm Spirit, Juggernaut, etc.

* Heroes that have a weak laning stage: Spectre, Nyx Assassin, Clockwerk, Spirit Breaker, Omniknight, Pudge.

* Hex can be used immediately to destroy Spectre's illusion when she Haunts.
* Shadow Shaman can use Shackles to lock down Spectre for his team.
* Shadow Shaman's Mass Serpent Ward and Ether Shock help him push lanes and end the game early before Spectre can come online and take over the late game.

* Hex greatly reduces Timbersaw's mobility.
* The stun and damage over time from Shackles mitigates Reactive Armor's HP and armor regen.

* Keeper of the Light's Aghanim's Scepter upgrade loses much of its power, due to Night Stalker being able to reduce the duration of daytime by a lot.
Additional:
* Crippling Fear prevents Keeper of the Light from using his spells to keep his team alive during team-fights.
* Dark Ascension is very strong against Keeper of the Light, who relies on daytime to be effective.

* With Dark Ascension Night Stalker gains unobstructed vision during night-time allowing him to easily detect mines if he has a Gem of True Sight, but Night Stalker is a melee hero so he has to be spell immune to safely defuse Remote Mines and Stasis Trap.
* Dark Ascension also allows Night Stalker to fly over Proximity Mines without triggering them.
* Crippling Fear is effective in stopping Techies from using Blast Off! and Void is effective in stopping them from running to the safety of their mines.

* Void is a potent nuke that is devastating to Puck's low health pool.
* Crippling Fear silence can prevent Puck from casting spells, leaving it vulnerable.
Additional:
* Puck cannot use any of its normal means to survive should Night Stalker catch it within Crippling Fear, and goes down quickly.

* Mass Serpent Ward can kill lots of treants if played defensively.
* Mass Serpent Ward, Hex and Shackles can catch and kill a Nature's Prophet trying to use Teleportation.
Additional:
* Shadow Shaman's Mass Serpent Ward together with Ether Shock can easily kill lots of Treant if played defensively.
* Mass Serpent Ward, Hex and Shackles can disrupt Nature's Prophet's escape attempt with Teleportation, though he can Sprout himself.
* Nature's Prophet also has no way to cancel Shackles.

* Crippling Fear can silence Faceless Void for a long time, preventing him from using his Time Walk and Chronosphere.

* The long silence at night prevents Clinkz from escaping with invisibility if Night Stalker can sneak up on him. He also has really low base health, so Night Stalker can usually kill him alone during one cast of Crippling Fear at night.

* Shackles and Mass Serpent Ward instantly destroy Refraction

* Heroes with abilities or items that can silence or disable Anti-Mage for long periods of time will prevent him from Blinking away: Silencer, Shadow Shaman, Grimstroke, Witch Doctor, Riki, Faceless Void, Skywrath Mage, Puck.

* Crippling Fear makes Night Stalker one of the best early game gankers to shut down Anti-Mage.
* Night Stalker's low mana pool causes him to take little damage from Mana Void.

* Can easily interrupt and disable Spirit Breaker with hex if being charged.

* Heroes that have a weak laning stage: Spectre, Nyx Assassin, Clockwerk, Spirit Breaker, Omniknight, Pudge.

* Hex's instant cast time will force Brewmaster into the awkward situation of needing some form of spell immunity or block to prevent being immediately hex upon blinking in, or wait until Shaman has used all his crowd control before entering a fight.
* Brewmaster also has no defense against Shadow Shaman lockdowns.

* Mass Serpent Ward rips apart Huskar quickly due to his poor armor.
* As soon as Huskar jumps in, he will be vulnerable to Shadow Shaman's disables if he does not have Black King Bar.

* Night Stalker can easily find Tinker in the trees during Dark Ascension.
* Void's mini-stun will stop Rearm and Boots of Travel.
* Crippling Fear's silence will prevent Tinker from fighting back, as Tinker relies on his spells.
Additional:
* Night Stalker is one of the best heroes to find (and silence) Tinker in the trees during Dark Ascension.

* Heroes with low health: Lich, Crystal Maiden, Lion.

* Heroes with low mobility that rely on spells: Zeus, Lina, Crystal Maiden.

* Heroes that have a weak laning stage: Spectre, Nyx Assassin, Clockwerk, Spirit Breaker, Omniknight, Pudge.

* Heroes with long disables, like Lion, Night Stalker, or Legion Commander, can prevent Oracle from using spells or items.

* Viper cannot interrupt heroes with powerful channeling abilities: Bane, Enigma, Shadow Shaman, Warlock

* Heroes with low mobility that rely on spells: Zeus, Lina, Crystal Maiden.

* Heroes with silence such as Riki, Silencer, or Night Stalker prevents Skywrath Mage from using his spells.

* Careful not to blink into Riki's Smoke Screen or Night Stalker's Crippling Fear, as these field effects will instantly silence Earthshaker and prevent him from initiating.

Additional:
* Fissure has a short stun and creates an impassable ridge. However, Night Stalker can fly over it during Dark Ascension.
* Night Stalker can find Earthshaker, disable his Blink Dagger with Void, and then take him out with Crippling Fear.
* Earthshaker may fail his blink combo against Night Stalker's team if he is not careful, as he can blink into the silence.

* Durable heroes can stand against Tusk during 1v1: Axe, Dragon Knight, Night Stalker, Centaur Warrunner, Wraith King and more.

* Heroes with weaker mobility will struggle to keep up with Night Stalker: Gyrocopter, Ursa, Drow Ranger

* Heroes with low health: Lich, Crystal Maiden, Lion.

* Heroes with magical burst damage can often kill Phantom Assassin before she gets to do much: Lina, Necrophos, Nyx Assassin, Gyrocopter, Shadow Shaman.

* A couple of nukers and disablers on the same lane can finish a squishy Luna efficiently despite a teammate's assistance: Sven + Shadow Shaman.

* Heroes that can keep Marci for a long time in one place so she can't pursue her targets, like Bane, Lion, Shadow Shaman, Invoker, Disruptor and Kunkka.

* Heroes with low mobility that rely on spells: Zeus, Lina, Crystal Maiden.

* Any heroes with silences can negate the majority of Outworld Destroyer's damage output: Death Prophet, Night Stalker, Drow Ranger, Doom .

* Void can interrupt Icarus Dive.
* His Crippling Fear's silence will shutdown a spell caster Phoenix.
* However, Phoenix punishes Night Stalker with Supernova because it will turn night into day, and it has a higher priority than Dark Ascension, effectively canceling the passive bonuses Night Stalker gets from Hunter in the Night.

* All of Shadow Shaman's abilities totally ruin Terrorblade: Ether Shock destroys his illusions, Hex prevents him from using Sunder or Manta Style in bad situations, Shackles not only that prevent him from using Sunder, but he has no way to cancel it and Mass Serpent Ward can help Shadow Shaman push faster than Terrorblade even in Metamorphosis.
Additional:
* Ether Shock can destroy Terrorblade's illusions.
* Hex prevents Terrorblade from using Sunder or Manta Style in bad situations. Hex can also destroy one of his illusions.
* Shackles prevents Terrorblade from using his skills and items, whether to fight, survive, or dispel it in any way. In addition, Terrorblade has no solutions to cancel it.

* With Dark Ascension he can keep vision on Slark, disabling his Shadow Dance regeneration. Slark is also too weak to seriously threaten Night Stalker in lane.

* Night Stalker can easily find Pudge's location during Dark Ascension.
* Void's mini-stun and silence from Crippling Fear at night will stop Dismember, Meat Hook and Rot and preventing Pudge from fighting back.
* Night Stalker has naturally high health, strength gain and common itemization for survivability through magic resistance, making Night Stalker a poor target for Pudge.

* Shadow Shaman's long disables are effective at kiting and wasting the duration of Battle Trance.
* Mass Serpent Ward are especially effective against Troll Warlord during Battle Trance, as trapping him inside them during the duration is effectively another hard disable, as Troll cannot attack the wards or use Phase Boots to escape.

* With Dark Ascension and Gem of True Sight, Night Stalker can easily find and kill Riki. Riki will also find it harder to kill the tanky Night Stalker than he would many other heroes.

* Heroes that have a weak laning stage: Spectre, Nyx Assassin, Clockwerk, Spirit Breaker, Omniknight, Pudge.

* Heroes with weaker mobility will struggle to keep up with Night Stalker: Gyrocopter, Ursa, Drow Ranger

* Heroes that have a weak laning stage: Spectre, Nyx Assassin, Clockwerk, Spirit Breaker, Omniknight, Pudge.

* Night Stalker's Crippling Fear at night prevents Shadow Walk for an extended period of time and his Void will make Phase Boots useless. If Night Stalker has True Sight, he can shutdown Bounty Hunter's sneak kill.

* The long silence of Crippling Fear at night prevents Mirana from escaping with Moonlight Shadow and Leap. She also has really low base health, so Night Stalker can usually kill her during one cast of Crippling Fear at night.
* With Dark Ascension and Gem of True Sight, Night Stalker can find and kill Mirana, and he is a tanky hero capable of fighting Mirana any stage of the game.

* Heroes with long or multiple disables will prevent Legion Commander from winning Duels: Shadow Shaman, Lion

* Heroes with weaker mobility will struggle to keep up with Night Stalker: Gyrocopter, Ursa, Drow Ranger

* Heroes that have long silences, such as Night Stalker and Silencer, will prevent Abaddon from saving his allies effectively and disable the active component of Borrowed Time.