My DK comment was kind of accurate though IMO. I dont know how anyone can make a case for him early game besides reciting the fact that he has THE LONGEST STUN IN THE GAME AT THE START LOL etc.
First let's be clear on what early game is. It's not the first 5 mins only. Early is 0-15mins, midgame is 15-30, after that it's late and there's even later than that which doesn't really have a name but that's like 1hour+ games with multiple heroes at 25 and fully slotted.
In the 0-15mins, DK is extremely strong. He's actually kinda meh from 0 to 6-8mins, which is the time it takes to get to 6, after which he's probably one of the strongest hero for a little time, at least in the current meta. The current meta, for the most part, involves a static laning phase for 8-12mins, and then 3-5man pushes, with an objective of pushing all tier1 towers by 17-20 and all tier 2 by 25, at least for the leading team, while securing rosh when possible around 15-20mins. Some strategies involve roaming and ganking more in the very early phase, but for the most part it consists of a passive or agressive trilanes and 2 solos and while some games get crazy in the first 10mins, most of them actually tend to be pretty light on action, however after that time, there isn't a "sit back and farm until 20" as much as there used to be. Still happens, just talking generalities here.
DK fits actually that timing perfectly. He's a hero that can sit back and farm the first few levels because his innate decent str, high armor, high regen and strong disable generally prevents agression toward him. He can lane in a trilane efficiently due to his strong aoe nuke and stun, but he can also solo mid without much of an issue and while he won't be a threat to the enemy mid, most mids won't be a threat to him either. He farms efficiently via his high damage aoe nuke that he can sustain easily with a bottle or a soul ring if not mid. Once he hits 6, he's now extremely dangerous, he moves faster than most heroes(assuming same level of boots), can stun at a fairly long range and does high autoattack damage. More importantly, once the pushing starts, and the pushing always starts in the current meta, he can push lanes quickly and take towers easily. Leave him alone in a lane and he'll take the tower as fast as a syllabear at that point, which is no small feat. Group up and he can stand in the front, soaking up pokes and tower shots while applying constant pressure to the building and threatening people of getting stunned and most likely killed. He requires you to commit to initiate on him and drop a large amount of nukes to drop him. Otherwise you just look at him slowing killing your tower, it's not rhasta wards or edict but one attack every 5secs will take it down over time easily while offering very little chances to counter that other than sacrificing the tower and splitpushing.
After early game and into midgame, this power fades off as I explained. His nuke doesn't scale obviously, his damage is extremely item dependant, he now needs to farm up to rival other heroes in teamfights, but farmed up he's still a threat. He also absolutely needs lvl 16, which makes him a bit of a liability when he's not as relevant but before he's reached that.
His early game is strong. It is very hard to stop a push led by a DK, so you lose your early towers, which gives you a large deficit of gold, which leads to being behind in midgame, which leads to you losing if you can't stabilize. That's why he's still a very valid pick in the current meta.
As for Fear, a lot of his DK games are probably from the Knight strat time. Omniknight, CK, DK, Chen +1(often Leshrac). Involved 5man dota at 15mins, using the massive healing and tanking power of CK and DK to break through. You could say it was #1 because it was Fear playing him but at the same time most of these games ended at 25mins and involved very little farming and a lot of pushing. I haven't checked though so maybe there's also pure #1 DK play.
