Hero Discussion: Shadow Demon

As you may know, Shadow Demon is one of my favourite supports. However, he isn't played a whole lot.

Maybe that should change?

Think about it: Three top heroes this patch: Juggernaut, Necrophos, Omniknight.

With SD, you effectively counter 2 of those, Necro, and Omni. Demonic Purge is great against Omni, and Disruption can save a team-mate's life from Reaper's Scythe.

As with the discussion, here are some guidelines:

1. How do you play SD (Skill Build, items, playstyle etc.)
2. Should we see more SD?
3. Favourite Combos with SD.

Thanks guys!

SD is a fun hero that I never play. I like his style a lot, but its requires a bit too much trust in your allies and I'm not an aggressive player by nature.

However, its clear he is quite powerful, as the hero design is just pretty awesome, I think he can fit very well into many kinds of teams.

The other day I was theorycrafting while bored in class. I put SD in two of my mental drafts, a deathballing anti-tanky hero one: Necrophos Safesolo, Zeus Mid, Undying, Support Huskar, SD aggrotri.

and a "Army of Darkness" draft that is supposed to create a ton of Terrorblades: Terrorblade safelane, Morphling Mid, Centaur off. Dazzle and SD in either safe or Off depending on enemy draft.

EDIT:Somehow this comment isn't fully loading. Help?



In what way? Don't all supports have to trust their cores?


He is... don you have any idea why he isn't played?

actually ommniknight isnt really a top pick at all and he has even been slightly decreasing this month, and his banrate a lot. :P his winrate isnt that high either at 45%.

and necrophos isnt a top pick at all. he is only picked around 4%, which is even lower then the likes of brood, silencer and SPIRIT BREAKER.
he does have a high winrate though, but i think thats cause he is mostly picked when he is good that game.


juggernaut actually counters shadow demon because he can just spin out of whatever disruption combo they are using, though im not 100% sure you can dodge an arrow that is inside the disruption when it ends. it might be possible cause you can also dodge icepath after euls setup.

he is pretty good against necro, not because you can slow him, but because you can actually save people from THE BIG GREEN SCYTHE OF DOOM!!11!!

its ok against ommni, its only one purge though, so i wouldnt really pick him just for a straight counter.

why he isnt picked, well he can also have a very limited impact. when compared against other popular supports he is pretty bad an ganking. you can use him with a combo, but most of the time you dont really need that.
venge is also just picked pretty much every game in his position, along with other popular supports like wisp, lion, ES rubick he can just feel very underwhelming at times, because he is just a slow tempo support without great lockdown unless you combo.
and bane is just simpler to use and does the same thing. while having more lockdown and a much simpler nuke.

also shadow poison is almost completely useless as a damage source in professional games, it can be usefull for scouting, stopping heals and blinks, but thats it.

He has a strong skillset, but it's very situational. He's very reliant on others to provide damage/stuns/slows that he lacks, his damage amplifier is RNG reliant in some circumstances, and his abilities lack range (other than Shadow Poison).

Quite squishy, struggles to get farm, and is quite mana heavy for most of his abilities. Generally lacks team fighting presence.

Disruption works well as a setup, and you can use it to break combos and save allies from some abilities.

I'd say part of the problem is his ultimate - it's not terrible by any means, but it's nothing to write home about in most situations.

My main problem with the hero is indeed the lack of teamfight presence. He's a very specialized hero because he's completely centered around single target burst damage. His skillset does indeed scale really well into late game with the scaling illusions and damage amplification but he needs to catch out the enemy carry on his own to do this.

In a teamfight the only thing he can do is defensive Disruption...which isn't bad by any means but not good enough IMO.
Other problem I have is his lack of lockdown, which means he can't deal with highly mobile heroes. Generally when I want a support I want someone with lots of CC that's why I pick Disruptor Bane etc.

SD is a really good pick against low mobility carries, the likes of Ursa, Sven, Troll Warlord and such however.

http://en.dotabuff.com/heroes/necrophos 28th most popular 57.24% WR
http://en.dotabuff.com/heroes/omniknight 47th most popular 58.46% WR

I guess your wrong???????

His Agh's upgrade is AWESOME though.