Necrolyte

^_^



He's one of the best laning heroes in the game. If you play him purely as a lane support, sitting in lane, harassing, denying, and keeping the creep equilibrium close to your tower by pulling... Necrophos has far, far better lane presence than 95% of supports in the game.

- Death Pulse is just ridiculous. It creates a 400 HP difference at level 7, with literally no cooldown. Nobody can fight into that really. Any engagement in is easily turned with double pulse.

- Heartstopper Aura is a *****. This skill is literally broken in the laning stage. There's no way you can lose your lane unless you feed lots of kills, because you will always out-harass the enemy heroes if they lane passively.

Omniknight is kind of a joke in lane. Dazzle is pretty bad as well. Vengeful Spirit has literally no lane presence. Lion is insanely good in lane but he's a top-tier (read broken) support.

Necro support is all about winning your lane. He's one of the best lane supports in the game, however he can't roam or set up kills in any way. He's essentially like Lich.

If you want a lane support to win your safe lane, and that goes really well into the late game, Necro is by far the best pick. And he can get his farm with stack-farming jungle and assist/kill gold with his ult.

UH....apart of the fact that you are questioning the great Hamstertamer, one of the gods of Dotafire
(HOW DARE YOU? ;))
You say that you should participate in early fights. But Hamstertamer just told u the same thing.
He said get a Mekansm and fight. Considering how fast Necrophos can farm that's a pretty easy task.
If you are on sidelane and not last-hitting at all (cutting out neutrals) what items will you have after 15 minutes?
Brown boots and a Headdress if everything goes well. You will be lvl 7 and have a maxed Deathpulse. Now please! Tell me how to fight with that. You will be killed easily with the possibility to get one pulse out.
And what can you do to help in lane?
Sure you got a heal. But this heal is pretty weak comparing it to other heals from guys like Dazzle and Omniknight besides that these guys don't need items to work.
So if you want to participate and be useful in early fights why not just pick a Vengeful Spirit or a Lion?
I don't see the point. So maybe you can clarify why Necrophos is good as a #4 or #5.

Thank you for your opinion. Especially for part with death pulse and invisible units, you are right, and I will change that in the guide.

About Necro mid ... I dont think necro is good at staying at mid and farming while enemy mid is ganking and changing the tide of a game. Necro should be present in fights since the start with his death pulse in my opinion.

About Force Staff to counter LS ... look at it this way: naix slow you and starts to kill you really fast. He may stun you (since abbysal blade is commonly built by him) and kill you in stun. If he doesnt stun you, you can force staff 600 units. Anyway you are still slowed there, 600 units away, and he can go to you in 1 seconds and starts to hit you hard again. Rage lasts 6 seconds. You bought 1 second. Still in 5 seconds naix with items can kill necro. Yes, force staff will help (but only a bit), but I am not sure if it is really useful item on Necro.

And about Riki part, again you are right with force staff, it will help you from silence, probably now it is more useful than against LS...but anyway it will only help if necrophos could get to safety during the time between force staff's push and next Smoke Screen

anyway thank you for your post and interesting thoughts

Necrophos is a really good solo mid BUT he is not a ganker. You can't gank with that hero but you don't need to. A big misconception in pubs is that mid lane is for gankers but this is completely false. Mid is for heroes with good lane control (which Necro definitely has, he wins a lot of 1 v 1 matchups), and for heroes who can make plays happen in the mid-game (which Necro definitely can as well because he's one of the best mid-game teamfight heroes). Necro is NOT a ganking mid, he is a *pushing* mid. You get an early Mekansm and go push with your team. Pushing towers is often a million times better than ganking.

A few comments also :

- Death Pulse *does* hit invisible units, look at the wiki article. Necro has no specific problem with invisible heroes.

- Lifestealer is a bit annoying to deal with but he's not the worst counter. Lifestealer is easily countered by Force Staff. Forcestaff is a good item on Necro anyways because Necro is slow and has no escape. Get a forcestaff, naix problem solved. Besides, Reaper's Scythe with hurt naix a lot, his magic immunity is not eternal.

- Riki is as far away from a Necrophos counter as you can get. Actually, if you ask me, Necrophos is a pretty hard counter to Riki!
Look at it this way : what is Riki good at? Picking off heroes who are alone. Riki is a good ganker but he sucks in teamfights. And what is Necrophos good at? Teamfights! Anything with good teamfight hard counters Riki because you can just group up with your team and push early, and Riki won't be able to gank anything. As soon as you get your Mek, go push towers, and I guarantee you that the only thing that Riki will be able to do is feed. The only problem you might have with Riki is the silence but if this silence is a problem (which I really don't think it is) you can counter it easily with a Force Staff.



Necro doesn't have a "support" build and a "carry" build. he has only one build, which is a tank build. No matter how you play this hero you need to tank up. Mekansm is not a support item, it's a tank/teamfight item. Aghanim's Scepter is Necro's best late game item. This build has extremely good late game. Necro is neither a support nor a carry, he's a tanky teamfight hero who doesn't fit in any category.
Anybody who plays Necro as a right-click hero needs to get their brain examined xD

Anyways cheers on the guide and +1 from me.

Noone said this is ultra late game carry guide. It is caused by the fact that necro is NOT a late game carry. If you need right click char, dont pick necro, otherwise you will get crushed by true right click chars.

This IS a support build. end. This is a semi support build and as far away from carry necrophos as you almost can get.

Well, thank xyou for your opinion. However, I think you should read more carefuly, because some of the things you mention are already said in the guide. Anyway about wards: I am no sure which part of guide are you responding to ... in items sections I said that in case other support bought cour, you should buy wards, and later you shoudl focus on your own core items.

I mentioned last hitting, as if you are for example pulling, you should last hit neutrals there. However, always there is written denying/lasthitting, and denying is in first place. That is because of the fact denies are the main source of your mana and hp regen. I hope we are clear now :-) .

About necro mid, I think it is really terrible idea. Necro is slow, and his only skill is death pulse, which is extremely short ranged. Necro lacks any slow skill, he is just slow char himself. Also he has only one stun, his ulti, which is extremely useless at level 1, since it only stuns for 1.5 sec and also it dont provide damage (talking about level 1 now). So necro lacks skills mid char needs.

About phase boots. Arcane boots give you massive MP boost and also mp restore skill (2 death pulses together). Those 2 death pulses are much more useful for Necro then some right click power (simply necro is not right click char, count with it).

About your last part: you wrote there that you buy meka first and then scepter. However, that is just the thing how it is in the guide. I recommend reading carefuly, and I am sure you will find it there :-).

Thank you for post, I hope everything is clear now.

Adding to what they said, I always grab 2 Iron Branches on Necro to be built into Mek later.

I'm a little confused by some parts of this guide. You make a point several times that Necro isn't and shouldn't be played as a support, but you mention needing to buy wards and sentries for dewarding. Also you say that you'll be laning with your carry, but also trying to get last hits. In lane, the carry should be getting every possible last hit. Usually Necro does well on his own in mid so he can get all the last hits he needs as well as a fast level 6.

I'd also recommend Phase Boots as an option. You have really good mana sustain with Sadist, so I think the mana boots are kinda unnecessary on you. Your supports can usually cover a couple of pairs of arcane boots for you. Phase Boots make last hitting way easier, and more importantly give you a speed boost that will let you stay near your opponent, keeping them in range of your aura and your death pulse.

I'm glad you have scepter as core on him, though. I always buy Mek and then Scepter because honestly that's all he needs to function until the mid-late game. It makes him incredibly useful later on.

I prefer use two Iron-Branches instead of both mantles of intel*,(allows you to build into items for progressing into the game) but other then that, pretty neat guide ;) +1

You are right, it is one of the possible options.
On the other hand, Mantle + tango + 3 branches + observer wards = 6 items. That way you will not have any more space for any other item (for example sentry ward for dewarding, or TP scroll). That is why I prefer to save some spaces at start...just in case.

I would swap one of the Mantle of Intelligence to some stat.
Branches let you live longer in lane and you can build the Headdress from it.