Outworld Devourer in the Safe Lane

Recently, I've pondered the idea of running Outworld Devourer in the safelane with supports as of the 6.84 patch. There are a few reasons for this. First is the old issue of his mid lane not being auto win in many cases and with no way to escape from ganks which makes him outclassed by a lot of current mid heroes, a buff to his late game in the form of Octarine Core and Moon Shard, and most importantly, a response to BKB with Aghs, which would disable everyone on the enemy team that is not magic immune, making a mini Song of the Siren.

Basically, not only can supports secure his early game, certain combo supports like Shadow Demon, Venomancer, Oracle, and Skywrath Mage all make for fantastic lane killing heroes, and all of them except Oracle can be played as Roamers if OD has an easy time in lane. If you draft OD, you can draft a mid hero, either one that benefits from the Essence Aura, like Zeus, Leshrac, or most of all STORM SPIRIT. Or for mid, maybe draft a hero who can damage through BKB, which might be a safer option, like Templar or Shadow Fiend (who can also combo with Aghs OD ult). For offlaner, the best choice is almost definitely Bristleback, due to having infinite mana in those mid fights and physical damage helps deal with that one BKB'd carry. Timbersaw can also run this path for more damage, but not having physical damage for enemy magic immunity, or offlane Alchemist to play for late game as an Aghs giver, giving OD a much much stronger late game.

I feel like OD in the safelane is versatile after the laning phase, going for things like Mek, Force, Atos to fight Early, to Midas to go late. I put together a sample draft that might be able to use it: "Essence of Bladed Poison" 1 - OD Safe, 2 - TA Mid, 3 - BB Off, 4 - Veno if Captains, Oracle otherwise to skip BKB, 5 - Shadow Demon

So what do you think of OD safelane as of 6.84 with his buffs and changes? Can he go there or does he only occupy the mid-lane?

outworld devourer safe lane has always been legit, if only for his ability to always win the lane even against all the kind of cancer offlanes you see in pubs (guys like Undying, Lich, Bristleback and friends)...even when your supports are completely useless. I love offlaners without mana.

But then, now that nobody picks heroes like Viper and Razor...OD wins essentially every mid matchup so why not play him mid? He's not *that* weak to roaming...he has Astral Imprisonment to counter ganks, he's decently tanky with high armor and 19 STR, he's fairly fast, he can manfight with orb and ult, etc.

On a related note, who will usually win the matchup; OD or SF?

I think OD unles SF plays the lane really well, and even then the SF will only break even. But SF will catch up later, and still get ahead of the OD.

My issue with OD in a place other than mid is that he is such a god lane dominator that it's kind of wasted against solo offlaners. Because, well the offlaer doesn't always need to come close enough to the OD for his dominating to work, unless it's a weak offlaner, but in those cases the support duo generally deals with it.

Maybe in a tri on tri situation when you can abuse Essence Aura to leverage a mana advantage for skirmishes, and Astral Imprisonment as a combo braker, but only if he's on the dfensive tri-lane and not the aggresive one.

I think a bigger issue for OD right now that potential support rotations making his life painful (Which is dependant on the game in honesty, although you'd probably see like a Skywrath Mage sitting with the oopposing mid for the first wave or two harrassing the OD and given the other mid an easier starting time, if OD became popular), is that a lot of Mids around currently can just catch-up and over take him anyway. QoP, Storm Spirit, SF, Leshrac, all of the can either flash farm stacks/the jungle, or can rotate and make kills happen without items. It's different to the days of say Invoker and Ember Spirit's mid who were a lot more reliant on the laning stage to propel them into a good mid game.

And if OD can't shut the hero he's laning against out of the game early on, what is the point of picking him? Like seriously, what is the point of picking and not just a more all around and more secure mid like Leshrac or Shadow Fiend?