A little thaught on Ouworld Devourer

Just a little ******** about outworld devourer and my evolution in playing the hero.

First I want to make clear that I'm not an outworld devourer expert or something like that but I'm starting to get the hero a bit and I'm abusing him to gain mmr. I play him mostly mid but sometimes I will do a safelane od or even an oflane outworld devourer. But before I start about myself I will just talk a bit about the for long time forgotten Outworld devourer.

Hero lore:

One of a lordly and magisterial race, Harbinger prowls the edge of the Void, sole surviving sentry of an outpost on the world at the rim of the abyss. From this jagged crystalline Outworld, forever on guard, he has gazed for eternities into the heavens, alert for any stirring in the bottomless night beyond the stars. Imprinted deep in the shining lattices of his intellect lies a resonant pattern akin to prophecy, a dark music implying that eventually some evil will wake out there, beyond the edges of creation, and turn its attention to our world. With his whole being focused on his vigil, Outworld Devourer paid little attention to events closer in to the sun. But at last the clamor of the Ancients, and a sense of growing threat from within as well as without, sent him winging sunward to visit the plains of war. Harbinger's place in our own prophecies is unambiguous: he must be considered an omen of worse things to come. But his arrival in itself is bad enough.

The original od

Od was introduced in dota at 16 februari 2012 as Ouworld Destroyer. He was decently strong during the ti2 where he was played as a carry in the midgame. Back than winning early game was pretty good and outworld devourer was than one of the strongest carries because the only other carries that got played back then where Luna and Anti-Mage because of the fact they came online prety early. After ti2 od got nerfed very hard from which he never recovered from until 6.86.

The boring old outworld devourer

The time between isn't too interesting, he got never picked and had a low winrate. This is because of how weak he actually was against bkb. Also your astral impisonment was the spell where you could steal int with but there wasn't realy a good opportunity during a teamfight to do that, and if you would use it it would only steal 13 int. This is nothing and the spell was only good for the laning stage and to safe people but mostly you would just **** over your own team. His ultimate has changed numbers of times where it would drain mana, where it wouldn't and all other stuff. But now in 6.86 Od is back into the meta and finally after 4 years he is again a good hero. He is actually a bit like Terrorblade a bit OP at the start and than kicked into a big pile of **** to cripple for a long time.

The return of the devourer

So what changed during 6.86 well it is pretty simple. Instead of Astral Imprisonment stealing the intellegence Arcane Orb does. Also the ball does a fine 300 nuke damage and has 4 seconds duration at level 1( before it was only 1 second at level 1 and 4 sec at level 4). While the ball did only steal 13 int each time it was used( at level 4) the Arcane Orb steals 5 at level 4. So with 3 hits you have already more than the ball would have given you.
Seeing an od with 50 stolen int at the end of a teamfight isn't rare. And all that int means more damage with Sanity's Eclipse. Before, your ultimate was only good when you where snowballing because otherwise people would have enough int that your ult wouldn't do too much damage or even none when you played against int heroes.

Well to be honest od was still **** at 6.86 he actually became the hero he is now in 6.86c. Here the arcane orb went from an int steal that was only: 1/2/3/4 to 2/3/4/5 and the duration from the steal went from 40 to 50 seconds. This made Arcane Orb a beast spell.

The old outworld devourer build was:

<essence aura< < <essence aura< <

So it was just maxing astral over essence over Arcane Orb while taking ult whenever you can.

Now the build is maxing Arcane Orb and essence aura togheter with taking only 1 level in ball and ult at level 6 or 9 and than when you can.

<essence aura< <essence aura< <essence aura< <essence aura<

Also I only get one level in Astral Imprisonment and than take stats over getting other levels in it. This is because it is a really good abillity to get 1 point in for the 4 seconds banish but the damage and the cd reduction aren't that usefull. Also the spell has only 400 range and your attack range is 450. Getting one level is useful as setup, to safe allies or to banish yourself so you can blink after it.

The items I get on od are:

Power Treads, Hand of Midas (situational), Drum of Endurance (best item in game), Blink Dagger (which is mostly better than Force Staff because you can banish yourself and blink away to escape), Rod of Atos, Black King Bar, Moon Shard ( not consumed) Scythe of Vyse, Shiva's Guard and Refresher Orb.

Outworld devourer has no mobility so getting more mobility is really good. Because his orb is based on your current mana and your ult on your int getting int items are a must have. Also a Black King Bar is often needed so you can stay clicking people, and attackspeed is also amazing so you can do more arcane orbs in one teamfight. The Refresher Orb is amazing to use togheter with Sanity's Eclipse for really clear reasons.

My personal appreciation of the hero

I played just a few games of od before he got all this buffs and I never liked him. I often called him the worst hero in the game. If I played him it was poorly and with alot of disgust. However when 6.86b was out I heared that outworld devourer was a pretty good hero. First I was like "man that hero will never be good" also because I didn't liked the new changes he got in the 6.86 patch but I did not knew he got such big buffs in the minor patches after. With my eyes I saw how devastating the hero had become and how his winrate went up on dotabuff. I still thaught that he was still an "ok" hero due that he is still countered by bkb. But soon I would realise that getting a bkb against that monster is just too difficult because he kills you 10 times before you can get it.

Now I play this destructive hero most of my games and I end up winning them too. This fellow is going to boost my mmr like he is doing for Arteezy. I already gained 200 mmr with him and I don't see it lowering upcoming days. Ofcourse he is going to get nerfed one day but as long that isn't the case I will be one of those annoying od firstpick spammers.

and what to do if od gets picked?

Well if that happens I will take Death Prophet, Necrophos, Invoker or Silencer for mid. Otherwise I will play Enigma, Crystal Maiden, Omniknight or Juggernaut. Maybe Nyx Assassin but that is pretty rare.

Also guys if you want to know who the biggest counter to Chaos Knight is than I will tell you. It isn't Ember Spirit or Earthshaker. Even Medusa, Sven or Timbersaw are peanuts. The biggest counter I ever played against is outworld devourer. His orb does bonus damage on illusions and his ultimate is an aoe nuke that is based on int difference. With other words he kills all your illusions and does a **** load of damage on you.


I wish you luck in upcomming games and I hope you found this **** fast written text a bit interesting.