The 2 player is usually put in the mid lane. His general goal is to get early levels and farm in order to control the early-mid game tempo. How he does this is specific to the hero and overall team goals.
Heroes such as QoP and TA specialize in small skirmishes, ganking, and quickly annihilating the back line. Invoker and Tinker are good at anti-pushing and pushing but need more time to farm. Magnus and Brewmaster excel in controlling team fights.
Mid 1v1 requires a unique set of skills beyond the scope of this post: foremost a deep understanding of heroes and match-ups; lane control and rune control; basic cs-ing technique; map awareness; strategic clarity.
Often the mid matchup is unbalanced for the sake of other game goals. QoP versus Magnus is heavily QoP favored, but QoP will not control team fights the way magnus will later on. In the mid-lane, bottle crowing is able to make poor match-ups survivable.
It is generally favorable to keep the lane controlled at the top of your own ramp in order to make cs-ing, vision and harassing an advantage. The wave before the rune spawns it is typical to clear and push the wave in order to control the rune. The details in accomplishing this are advanced and exceptions are many. For example when playing rubick in the early levels, or TA against invoker, it may be advantageous to keep the lane pushed into the enemy tower in order to make cs-ing very difficult.
Night Stalker
A fun ganking hero to play. NS is strongest at the first night and his power diminishes as the game progresses. He is not a particularly potent laner and early bottle crowing is advised.
Against difficult match-ups such as QoP starting with a bottle is good. Keep the courier next to you and use Void to get some CS and start bottle crowing.
Against heroes with spammable abilities such as Magnus, I start with a naked wand and rush bottle.
When you can straight CS, a set of tangoes and 3 branches is a viable route or you can start with a bottle.
The goal of Night Stalker before the first night is to get out at minimum a bottle and boots. When night hits go around getting kills.
Item progression: bottle, boots, urn, treads, black king bar, abyssal blade.
Skill progression: QWQEQEQR
We delay leveling ult because we want to be at our highest kill potential during the first night. After that in general during night you want to cast ult to prolong the night and ult will be off cooldown again during the day.
During the laning phase, at levels 3 and 5 you can cast void on the enemy hero to keep him low.
CSing on this hero is much less important than ganking and getting kills. His strength during the first night must be utilized or the opportunity is wasted. Remember that void mini-stuns and can break teleports, and it is also usually best to cast it first as a gap-closer.
Switching to Intel-treads before casting and switching out before using the bottle greatly increases the available mana pool. As you expect to get kills, an urn is a natural fit and along with rune control keeps you topped up. Night-stalker has good strength and agility gain and in even numbers it is rare not to come out on top in engagements in the early stages of the game.
Optionally, for additional tankiness a vanguard or heart may be purchased as Night Stalker is usually charged with going in first as the front line.
A note about Crippling Fear: It both silences and causes a miss chance. Therefore a conscious decision must be made between silencing a spell-caster or giving a miss chance to a carry.
Heaven's Halberd is a poor man's alternative to Abyssal Blade.
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