Shadow Demon

I think Shadow Demon is and has been a very strong hero. You catch enemy heroes out, amplify all damage on them and watch as they cry in their sleep. Since he's so underpicked a lot of people severly underestimate his impact.
In the current meta he is extremely strong since it's all about early-mid game and 50% damage amplification is absolutely obnoxious with heroes like Gyrocopter.
In 6.84 SD is the absolute nightmare of heroes like Bristleback, Slark, Drow Ranger, Troll Warlord, Dragon Knight, Juggernaut and many more. Since the ult now applies break it has become a simply obnoxious ability.
What are your thoughts on SD? You think he's viable in the 6.84 proscene?


TL;DR: Play Video

I really want to play this guy more, it's just that Disruption causes the rest of your team to understand timings... Such a strong hero, and the Aghanim's Scepter upgrade is insanely strong.

Also, really nice tip about Invoker skill build at the end.

isn't SD ult purgable by Dark Pact?

no.

i want to play SD mid again, i did it once but i didnt have the best game despite us winning.
the struggle or being the only one to die on your team and only getting assists in fights ;_;

i always liked SD. his skillset is insanely good ...esp. the 50% dmg amp to ALL types ....thats just ridiculous. Disruption also makes for some good combo potential. And since old combo-partners like Lina and Leshrac are now more viable than ever, i think that he will definitely make a comeback.

The thing with SD is that in a vacuum he sucks compared to other supports.

Mediocre harass (poison is easy to dodge + usually max W first)

No hard disable

Squishy and slow

Mana intensive

Greedy pick

But with and against certain lineups he can wreak absolute havoc. The ability to purge buffs through magic immunity is seriously underrated. His illusions are even more underrated. Throw that **** on a Terrorblade and watch the enemy team cry. His other skills can do a lot, too - against Heroes you need to burst down like a Necrolyte, Soul Catcher is invaluable. And over the course of an extended fight, Poison can easily hit for half an enemy's HP early game.

Not only that, once you have 2 or 3 items one of which is probably Urn and the others being Aghs and Force Staff, you can solo a lot of carries. Hell, Shadow Demon can beat a PA if she isn't ******edly lucky.

The biggest problem is that he has a small window of dominance where you need to assert your domosh or just fall off incredibly hard. During that time, though, you're a poor support who is likely babysitting a carry you can't leave.

That is why SD is a bad pub hero. You are a great roamer with a short amount of time to make a huge difference, and you can't leave your carry to a 2v1 lane because you never see a solo offlane in pubs. If you have a coordinated team who can build a team around him, or more accurately fit him into a lineup built around a core, and give him the space he needs to use his time best, then he's a ridiculous Hero.

I *believe* in the lategame ESL One meta (good times) SD was picked a lot precisely because he was greedy and good lategame plus could disrupt the plans of the other team. He, more so than many supports, is meta-dependent, hence why throwing him into 6.83 didn't do a lot.

He has returned to the pro scene now and has been doing a lot of dirty work.
As I said the dmg anplification is strong with gyro and the buff on the ult destroys most tanky heroes.

He's always been pretty viable in the pro scene, even if he wasn't getting picked up much.

He's a tough sell in pubs though - he's incredibly reliant on other heroes taking advantage of his setup/amplification abilities. Without others adding damage, he's not very effective, and it's not helped by requiring timing for the follow up on Disruption - unlike something like Nightmare.

I wouldn't say he's particularly greedy, he does have mana problems compared to other #5s and needs to be very selective in his spell use. Yes, ideally you want an Aghanim's Scepter on him, but it's not as essential as say a Disruptor or Ancient Apparition. Force Staff or Blink Dagger are also pretty useful.

I see him working in two possible ways - Disruption is great against wombo-combo lanes as you can break their setups effectively. He's most effective though in kill focused lanes where his set/amplification leads to assist gold.

This ^

It's not that Shadow Demon has ever been weak in the last few patches, it's just that there have been other options that do something better than him...other than:-

Had a game where our SD disrupted the illusions TB sent to delay our push and wrecked the tower with the disruption illusions. Was pretty fun to watch.

Anyway from my experience of playing SD I always get pretty decent farm, because clearing a big stack only takes 5 poison stacks (15 seconds). With shadow poison you can even stack and/or clear 2 camps at the same time without the need of a quelling blade (or usage of tango). Because of the mana cost reduction on Shadow Poison I have rarely had mana issue with urn and arcane boots.

TBH I havent played SD at all before 6.84 (maybe once or twice), but now he's one of my favorites when it comes to greedy support. Being able to force the enemy team to split because of the fear induced by poison stacks really shines in teamfights, because you can prevent melee heroes from focusing on one target and keep ranged heroes far enough away so they can't rightclick. Once they clump up you stack your poison and watch them explode from the Ebola you cast on them.