Cuttleboss' Guide to Gluttony and Greed [6.86]

Introduction

When I played Dota 1, I always had a soft spot for Lucy. He was the hero that managed to play all pick with the gold of Easy Mode. If you don't know what Easy Mode was, just know it was the most imbalanced game mode ever, worse than ability draft. Lucifer was one of those heroes that you could always have enough money to do stuff with, and thus, never truly irrelevant. However, as hero defined by gold, he is very greedy and can cost the team if forced to fight too early, after all, the devil needs time to corrupt.

Lucifer is a very tanky and versatile hero that is centered around money. He can occupy almost any role his team requires of him. He is very hard to kill due to his tankiness and his sustain, so he is often run solo offlane, as he benefits from the levels. For the same reason, he can also be run mid, although that's less recommended, since he will not likely win most lineups. Due to his ability to amass gold, he can be run in the safelane as a carry who activates early with a fast Radiance timing, although that is also not recommended due to the short timing window he has. And of course, he can be run as a greedy support often in the jungle. For farm priority, this places him in any position from 1-4, but his best position is 3.

This guide is not concise.

Updates

February 11, 2016: Updated for 6.86. Added Infernal Blade to skills. Removed all attack speed items from item builds. Builds updated with the new Doom. Added Artist Sourcing.
October 18, 2015: Ancient Apparition and Witch Doctor added to enemies.
October 12, 2015: Guide Created

Difficulty

Intermediate

Unknown Source
"Hehehe"

Doom as a hero is very straightforward. However, using his skills requires good game knowledge and lots of macro instead of micro that would be needed for a Meepo or Earth Spirit. You need to know the creeps abilities inside and out and how they interact with what heroes and items are in the game and depending on what time of the game it is. Doom is a dominantly late game hero, which means that things like Linken's Spheres are important to keep track of, and due to the cast point of his ultimate, knowing how to initiate is the key to playing Doom. Doom's target has to be chosen and properly targeted before they wreck fights.

But when it comes to actually playing the hero, Doom is very easy, there is just a lot to pay attention to.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Doom has a set group of strengths and weaknesses to exploit. Let's examine them shall we?

Pros: You're all doomed!
+ Very high base strength and strength gain, also has a healing spell, so he is very tanky
+ Has perhaps the the most powerful disable in the game.
+ Can be very fast moving with Scorched Earth and an attainable passive ability
+ Once he gets Doom and Scorched Earth out, he is pretty resistant to disables.
+ High INT gain, higher than or tied with all AGI heroes except Sniper
+ Devour makes him very flexible by giving him lots of creep abilities and money
+ Prints money on the map instead of vacuuming it to himself like that bastard Tinker.
+ Hard to force out of lane due to large health pool and sustain skill(s).
+ Even if forced out of lane, can go to the jungle so cannot be fully shut down.
+ Abilities are fairly adaptable for many situations.
+ Agh Doom counters almost every hero in the game ( Wraith King and Meepo, not so much)
+ Late game monster, almost unmatched in his presence as game goes late. Even the hardest carries in the game are terrified of him.
+ Cool voice and boasts (Something about being the midnight of your soul)

Cons: Oh no, Linken's!
- Very item dependent
- Abysmal starting armor and agility gain, meaning he's quite vulnerable to physical damage for most of the game
- Level Dependent
- Has rather limited use when Doom is on cooldown
- Very low base INT, low as Phantom Assassin, Troll Warlord, or Lone Druid, so has mana issues until he has some levels.
- Weak right click due to low base agi and gain, as well as extraordinarily high BAT (alpha wolf helps a little bit, but it costs utility)
- Takes time to come online; a greedy pick that is vulnerable to early enemy pushes
- Low health doomed target can be denied, which can prevent or slow down any snowballing.
- He can't carry his allies if they're all bad. Sorry he just can't.
- Outclassed in everything he does other than countering a hero. There are heroes that tank, carry, support, initiate, and hold auras better.

When to Pick?

So, with all these in mind, this is a list of when you're gonna pick or not pick SATAN.

Pick him if:

• There is someone on the enemy team you need to desperately counter
• There is gonna be 1 or 2 cores that will clearly lead in gold (easier to shut down their team like that).
• Both teams have picked late game hard carries.
• Team needs a solo offlaner
• Your team already has big AOE stuns, especially ones good at contesting Roshan
• The enemy team has at least 3 low hp heroes or at least one fragile core hero (since Doom bursts)
• Your team has enough early game potential relative to the enemy's so you have time to come online

Do not pick him when:

• Enemies have lots of early pushers
• Your foes have a lot of stuns, especially long ranged ones
• Enemies have heroes that can easily take Roshan
• The enemy team has at least 3 very tanky heroes (Good luck snowballing against that)
• Enemies chose an illusion carry
• Enemies chose armor reducing heroes
• Your team needs a hard, non greedy, support.
• Your team needs a late game oriented carry

Skill Build and Abilities

Doom has a few possible skill builds. You can choose to max devour first with Scorched Earth maxed next, or you neglect devour and go for your aggressive skills. Devour is almost always taken first level in order to eat a nearby big creep asap to get an experience lead. You max devour first in the offlane where you are trying to scrape as much farm as possible. You can also leave Devour at level 1 and go for Infernal Blade max with scorched earth if you really need to be active and killing, and only suited for a very aggressive lane. If you're in a farming build, Infernal Blade is generally not touched until level 10, it's not worth a value point, because Doom doesn't have the mana to use it until he has some levels, it doesn't help his survival which has highest priority, and it has to be maxed in order to be used often, and your ultimate can stop TPs, as can multiple creep abilities. Doom is taken whenever possible.

Skill Build A: Biding Time (Max Farm/Survival, Offlane Build)
1 Devour
2 Scorched Earth
3 Devour
4 Scorched Earth
5 Devour
6 Doom
7 Devour
8-9 Scorched Earth
10 Infernal Blade
11 Doom
12-14 Infernal Blade
15 Stats
16 Doom
17-25 Stats

Skill Build B: Aggressive (Earlier Activation)
1 Devour
2 Scorched Earth
3-5 Infernal Blade
6 Doom
7 Infernal Blade
8-9 Scorched Earth
10 Devour
11 Doom
12-14 Devour
15 Stats
16 Doom
17-25 Stats

Skill Build C: Heaven or Hell (Balanced)
1 Devour
2-3 Scorched Earth
4 Infernal Blade
5 Scorched Earth
6 Doom
7 Scorched Earth
8-10 Devour
11 Doom
12-14 Infernal Blade
15 Stats
16 Doom
17-25 Stats

Time to briefly look at his abilities. Numbers can be seen on his wiki page.

Devour:
Usage: MONEY!!!! (Also Various other reasons)
Notes: Does not give you the bonus gold until the creep is digested and you can't eat another while you're digesting, so cast it on low health creeps.
Instantly kills siege creeps. Destroy those annoying mechanical buggers shooting your towers.
If you die before digestion, you get no bonus gold.
But you get the creep's bounty and XP as soon as you use it, turns out shoving something into your mouth when your insides are magma will kill it. Good for you.


Scorched Earth:
Usage: Tanking, Chasing, Escaping, Damage, Disabling Blink Daggers
Notes: This is why you're so hard to kill despite having horrendous armor.
Use this to force the enemies to chase you, if you kite them with this, you can easily turn fights around.
The heal works on any units you control, notably, Necronomicon units.
Don't underestimate the amount of healing this can give you, thus why you scale very well with armor and poorly with health.


Infernal Blade:
Usage: Cancel TP Scrolls, Sustained Damage
Notes: This becomes one of your main sources of damage as the game goes on.
You need to stay close to keep this damage on your target, but it adds up quickly.
Does not interact with Linken's Sphere, you will need an item or creep ability to break it.


DOOM:
Usage: Make a hero into a tiny baby crying for help that will not come
(With Aghs) Almost certainly killing your desired target
Notes: This skill is vastly unfair.
Takes 0.5 seconds to cast and has only 550 cast range, so position yourself nice and close to your target.
Don't cast this on a target with Linken's Sphere on, use a creep or item ability.

Doom's Creep Abilities

Doom is uniquely able to get the abilities of Creeps for his own purposes. We will briefly look at some of the creep abilities to see when to get them.

"Where most see foes, I see a buffet."

Easy Creeps
Kobold Foreman: Speed Aura

Grants an extra 12% movespeed aura in an area, which translates out to a stronger aoe yasha for your team. This ability is pretty all purpose and well suited for any scenario where the other abilities aren't needed more. Early-Late: 7/10

Hill Troll Priest: Mana Aura and Heal

This is perhaps the best set of abilities for dealing with a tough lane, and the mana aura is incredible paired with the heal for sustain. Doom has to disable himself to use it, so it will lose its value quickly, and more importantly, he will almost never be able to eat this creep due to it being in the easy camp and you can't access the enemy's and accessing your own would take too much time unless you're solo safelane. Early: 10/10. Mid-late: 3/10

Vhoul Assassins: Envenomed Weapon

This ability is a joke. 2 dps only applied by melee range with no slow. Never ever eat this creep. Early-Late: 1/10

Ghost: Frost Attack

This ability is a slight step up from the Vhouls, but this ability still is rather useless on Doom, since he has to get close to use the active, and it only lasts 1.5 seconds, which means that with Doom's low attack speed, its really easy to break. Skip this one if you can. Early-Late: 2/10

Harpy Stormcrafter: Chain Lightning

This skill is quite annoying for enemies to deal with in lane, due to its noticeable amount of damage and rather low mana cost for easy last hit grabbing. However, the mana cost adds up in many cases to the point where you can't really use devour for gold. Also lies the problem of pretty much never getting the opportunity to use it since this creep is hard to access. You can use it later in the game to pop Linken's, since it has 900 cast range. Early: 5/10 Mid-Late: 3/10

Centaur Conquerer: War Stomp

A very high use spell that is good when your team lacks stuns, as Doom with this and Blink can function well. Not very useful early game due to its pathetic damage, but very useful the rest of the game for its offensive applications. Due to its cooldown, can't be used more than once a fight. Early: 2/10 Mid-Late: 8/10

Centaur Courser and Hellbear: Cloak Aura

A stacking magic resist aura, but it's only 5% for heroes, so it's not very good and heavily outclassed by just getting a hood, and it is not very viable on you unless you need it to protect an ally's summons from magical nukes. Early-Late: 3/10

Alpha Wolf: Critical Strike and Packleader's Aura

This is a big boost to your team's damage output, and is the best creep for increasing Doom's farm rate. It also shines late game with the natural damage gained by Doom's strength and to boost the carry's damage. Worthless early game and will in fact push the lane. Damage seems nice, but Doom's base damage is already high enough in the early game.
Early: 1/10 Mid: 5/10 Late: 9/10

Giant Wolf: Critical Strike.

Garbage compared to alpha wolf. Don't accidentally eat this wolf. Early-Late: 1/10

Satyr Banisher: Purge

A very short ranged purge. Very situational based on how susceptible enemies are to purge. It can keep someone permanently slowed, so this ability has a lot of uses against melee carries. Unfortunately has a rather heavy mana cost. Early: 2/10 Mid-Late: 5/10 Against Omniknight: 10/10

Satyr Mindstealer: Mana Burn

A pretty good creep for controlling a single opponent in lane. It burns twice as much mana as it costs, so its a very useful ability. Becomes useless pretty quickly though, mainly only being marginally useful for breaking Linkens since its 600 cast range, and Chain Lightning is better at it.
Early: 7/10 Mid-Late: 3/10

Ogre Frostmage: Ice Armor

So, you know what Doom lacks? Armor. This ability is pretty much perfect for Doom assuming your team doesn't need the other abilities provided, and that you have the mana to sustain it. Beware that it can be purged though. Once you actually buy some armor, you may want to prioritize other abilities.
Early: 5/10 Mid: 10/10 Late: 8/10

Mud Golem: Hurl Boulder and Shard Split

This duo of abilities seem to have a limited use, however, this is actually a deterrent for people killing you. See, each boulder is 125 damage, and each of the Doom Shards have it too, so if they kill you, you will have done at least 375 magic damage to them and they'll learn their lesson. Plus, the boulder costs no mana, so you can just keep throwing them to harass as well. This ability allows Doom to kill decently in the laning phase. Afterwards, it gets outclassed, but still works to pop enemy Linken's Spheres from 800 range, though it is at impact, so its quite easy to escape.
Early: 7/10 Mid-Late: 3/10

Satyr Tormenter: Shockwave and Unholy Aura

This set of abilities are very good early game. The regen aura causes the lane to push, but makes Doom much harder to force out of lane, while the nuke is possibly useful for killing, but is also an effective way to get last hits from a distance. This creep rapidly loses its effectiveness.
Early: 9/10 Mid: 5/10 Late: 2/10

Hellbear Smasher: Thunder Clap and Swiftness Aura

These abilities are pretty good, it makes for fairly easy pushing, and a good early alternative to the Centaur, since Thunder Clap does quite a bit more damage than War Stomp, but it gets outclassed as game goes on.
Early: 8/10 Mid: 6/10 Late: 4/10

Wildwing Ripper: Tornado and Toughness Aura

This creep has one purpose and one purpose only, and that's to clear stacks of large camps, whether stacked by you or your allies. As for everything else, Tornado is unusable in combat since it disables Doom as well, and Toughness Aura is thoroughly weak compared to the Ogre's Ice Armor.
Early: 5/10 Mid-Late: 2/10

Dark Troll Summoner: Ensnare and Raise Dead

This is a well rounded creep that is useful for both ganking and pushing. Raise Dead's effectiveness rapidly drops as the game goes on since the skeletons don't scale at all, but ensnare is very useful against heroes that blink or run fast, but it has a rather short cast range, so its use for popping Linken's is limited.
Early: 7/10 Mid-Late: 5/10

So with all this info, determine which creep suits your playstyle and the game you happen to be playing.

The Stages of the Game

Early Game:

Laning:
by Angryrabbitgmod
"Midnight is coming!"

Doom's main goal in the early game is to farm, he is item and level dependent and will need some in order to be truly threatening. He has many possible laning arrangements. If your opponents have really bad laners, you can bully them.

Solo Safelane/Offlane: This is the preferred laning for Doom. He uses the bonus exp well. Doom can be run against a multiple heroes and usually expect to survive, and due to his high damage, he can also do pretty well in a 1v1 matchup. Start this lane arrangement by eating the first big creep you can (whether the one closest in lane on their side, on the big camp by your ancients), no matter what it is, this is to give you an instant exp advantage. If the lane is going great, the enemy supports are not zoning you like mad, then stay close to the lane and get XP, last hit if you can, and use Devour if you have the mana for it. If the lane is tough, try to go into the enemy jungle and find some good creeps to eat, and don't approach the wave until you have Scorched Earth ready. If the lane is impossible (like a double stun lane killing you), then go to the jungle.

Solo Mid: Lucifer can go here, especially if he has a melee matchup. With his high damage, he can contest the last hits on the lane. Devour also allows for that too. Once level 6, Lucifer can easily kill his mid opponent with Doom and Scorched Earth unless they're really tanky. Some opponents mid are really hard, like Viper and Huskar, so try to avoid some hard matchups.

Dual Sidelane: If you are the primary lane farmer, then this is an option. However, Doom has rather lacking lane presence without a exp lead. Try your best to get your farm and prioritize that over killing. You may also want to eat a big creep asap for the xp boost. Doom can also bully certain lanes with his Scorched Earth and/or Infernal Blade, and if you neglect points in Devour, you better make up for it with kills.

Defensive Trilane: If running a Carry Doom, he can be placed here to secure his farm. Not much to say here, get your farm and carry the game. If the lane is hard, rotate to another lane if you must.

Jungle: I personally don't recommend you jungle Doom, since he is insanely greedy and you generally want to put him in a lane to keep the enemy heroes occupied (because that's how you win the laning phase), and also because he has 2.0 BAT which means he hits really slowly. There are plenty of jungle Doom guides that can teach you the ins and out of jungling Doom. I do keep the jungle as a last resort if the lane you face is too hard. With Devour to instantly destroy creeps and good use of choke point jungling, Doom can amass a lot of gold. Also, to maximize your farm, you can stack a hard camp several times and clear it with the Wildwing's tornado ability.

Midgame:

Once you get some levels, and preferably some farm, you have entered the midgame. Alright, here's the thing with Doom, you're not here to AFK farm, you're here to fight, kill, and snowball. Your abilities mostly do static amounts of damage so you want to gain momentum as soon as possible, and with your comically low attack speed, you'll be farming really slowly anyway. Find fights as soon as you have enough items, and farm those major items if you don' have enough to fight yet, use that farm rate. Remember to spam Devour to get as much gold as possible, but you're gonna be using it so you don't have to devote a much more precious resource to attaining money, Time. Devoting too much time killing creeps is mostly a waste for Doom due to his fighting skillset, especially since his ultimate and his blade ability is so good at killing heroes. If possible, try to secure Roshan, the reason is not because Doom is particularly good with it, but to deny it to enemies, since Aegis carriers can often be too much for Doom to deal with.

Late Game:
Unknown Source
"All hell breaks loose!"

Now it's gotten to the late game, and now this is where all the extra gold you've gotten from Devour has added up, so your net worth is probably close to your carry's, or if you are the carry, way higher than the enemy carry's, although either case can be wrote if you have died a lot. Additionally, this is where you stop Dooming whichever hero you see, your superior farm should allow you to take them on, and save your Doom for the enemy cores, after all, its better to disable more farm usually. This is not always the case, like using Doom for a key pickoff on a support can probably be a good idea, or casting Doom on a high impact support over a carry might be a better choice, like Enigma or Omniknight, especially if they are easier to target. Proper Doom usage should make winning teamfights a breeze as you shut down one of their main cores, and the death time should be enough to take objectives. However, beware of enemy buybacks, as Doom is still very reliant on his ultimate to perform well and not having Doom against a farmed enemy core is a distinct disadvantage. Also, remember that deaths will give the enemies a lot of gold due to your (probably) high net worth, but you should be pretty tanky at this point if you got armor items. End the game, and as with midgame, secure Roshan when you can, just so it can't be used against you.

Item Build

Starting:

Sustain and Anti Harass: Stout Shield, Ring of Protection, Tango
These items allow Doom to take hits early on, and that's it. Seriously. His base armor is too low so he needs it.

Last Hits: Quelling Blade, Tango
For a lane you're not expecting harass in, this is a nice and easy way to get last hits, since with quelling blade, Doom can easily last hit under the tower.

Early Game Items:
Point Booster: This is one of your most important early items, as it builds into Aghs, and it grants a massive boost to your mana pool, which you need with Doom's terrible starting INT. You can substitute this with an arcane boots.
Buckler: This is an effective item, the armor is very welcomed on Doom, and it builds into a Mek if that is the item your team needs.
Hand of Midas: This item is a viable option because Doom generally wants to go into late game. The bonus XP and gold can print a lot of money on the map, but if enemies are fighting earlier, it can also cost your team the game. Get your more important items like your upgraded boots first if you need them.

Boots Choices:
Tranquil Boots: These are my favored boots for Doom, since they let him run around the map quicker, give him armor, and let him heal between fights without going back to the fountain, and if you're solo offlane, it is possible you'll need these boots in order to not get harassed out.
Phase Boots: These boots are pretty useful on Doom, since the speed stacks well with scorched earth for letting Lucy close the distance very well, and attack his target with infernal blade a few more times in a chase.
Arcane Boots: Arcanes. These boots have only 1 purpose for Doom, and that's to be build into Guardian Greaves. The early mana is actually quite nice too, but the other boots tend to be better on him.
Power Treads: Not very good boots on Doom, since he doesn't do very much damage in his right clicks, and the other boots just offer more for him. Even for farming, Boots of Travel is preferred.
Boots of Travel: Very good boots that should be picked up in the late game, as getting around to cast Doom on key enemies means that you can make a big difference in fights even if you show up late. And plus buyback travels is a good combo too, especially if you got killed before you got Doom off.

Mid Game Options:
Blink Dagger: Since your ulti has a 550 cast range, and you need to stay close to your target to burn them with scorched earth and infernal blade, this item is very important against many opponents just because it highly increases the chance of you actually killing your target. Also, it's nice for getting around the map quicker.
Aghanim's Scepter: This is what turns Doom from an annoying DoT into a killing DoT. The-not-counting-down-while-near-Doom pretty much means that unless the target has healer allies or are very close to their fountain it is fairly likely they will die if you got this early enough. The Break on it is also extremely effective against tanks and carries that would've been troublesome before like Bristleback and Troll Warlord.
Blade Mail: A useful fighting item for Doom, as it turns his health pool into a means to damage his enemies. The stats are nice too, especially early game. A stack of int and a bunch of armor help a lot with his survival and casting. Many opponents may be a little hesitant to hit you if you focus too much on tanking up however.
Mekansm: A pretty good item to buy on Doom for early fighting as well, and a good item to pick up in general. Due to Doom's terrible mana early game, you need Arcane Boots first. The armor granted in total is very nice.
Guardian Greaves: As an extension to Mek above, Greaves is an awesome item. Not only is the mana penalty from Mekansm removed as well as the ability to purge off annoying slows and silences granted, now you have the awesome guardian aura, which stacks fantastically with Scorched Earth, which makes you really hard to kill.
Pipe of Insight: A Go-to item against mass aoe nukes, if you are the best carrier on the team. Spot Zeus, Sand King, Lich, and all the rest.
Crimson Guard: A pretty good item, makes you and your friends tanky against many instances, so Troll Warlord, Meepo, and those illusion carries you hate so much. Get it sooner if you're going to get it.
Vladmir's Offering: A pretty decent item on Doom, it offers nice stats and once Doom has casted his ult and his fire, he is a pretty good aura holder, since he has nothing else to do other than poke with his sword and he's really hard to kill.
Radiance: This is the go-to carry item on Doom if you're wanting to try to carry with him. The miss chance makes him less vulnerable to enemy right clicks, and it stacks well with Scorched Earth, making Doom have a 90 dps aura around him, which can be terrifying at minute 15-25. It also speeds up his farm since he can wave clear without using scorched earth, and he can farm it quickly with devour. Make sure once this is acquired, try to end the game as soon as possible. If you're not carrying, it can be picked up late game as a miss chance aura and anti-blink dagger measure if you didn't rush it and are not being a carry.
Drum of Endurance: A decent item for early fighting, but a dead end one. It makes Doom pretty fast and moderately tanky mid game but it makes snowballing more of a priority, so go aggressive when you get drums.
Necronomicon: A possibly useful item on a Doom that wants to push. Necrobook has a special synergy with Scorched Earth, since its a healing aura for the units, so it may actually increase their survival quite a bit for those pushes. If you're gonna get it, try getting it earlier, since the minions fall off pretty hard.
Shadow Blade: An item to sneak up on people. Pretty straightforward. This item is rarely picked up over blink, however, if the enemy cores are often alone, probably either farming or splitpushing, this is a good pickup, since they will be unlikely to carry detection. Be more careful as the game goes on and the enemy's detection becomes more plentiful. You can use Infernal Blade and it'll stack with the bonus damage from breaking Invis too.
Force Staff: A rare pickup, since Doom prefers Blink. But this item is pretty useful for kiting melee carries, and is an important counter to Riki and Clock.
Solar Crest: This item makes Doom into a nightmare to kill with physical attacks. The active is not something he'll be using often, since he doesn't deal significant physical damage, but his allies may. This item also allows for easier roshan taking, which is what Doom wants.
Black King Bar: Oh yes, BKB. When the enemies have stuns, this is the item to pick up. Doom is in a bad position with this item. It's not like DK where you're getting it in 90+% of your games. If Doom gets out his ult and his scorched earth, he doesn't really care about getting disabled since he is not too focused on right clicking, even with Infernal Blade. This item is a last resort to when you can't even get out your spells because of how many stuns and silences the enemies have.

Late Game Options:
Refresher Orb: Two Dooms are better than one. This is a major reason why Doom can be unbeatable late game, simply because Doom removes 2 key heroes from a fight. The cooldown on this item is incredibly long, so be careful if the enemies try to fight around it, and consider an Octarine Core. Keep in mind it also refreshes any items you have, like BKB or Blade Mail.
Shiva's Guard: The best armor item for Doom, since it's active keeps enemies nice and slow to be damaged by Doom's various DoTs. The int is nice too, since it gives him enough mana to do pretty much whatever he wants.
Assault Cuirass: An inferior armor item for Doom, but still worth picking up if your team has no better carriers of it. The attack speed boost is really weak on Doom, since his BAT is so terrible.
Octarine Core: A very good late game item on Doom, significantly cutting his downtime so he can cast more Dooms. It also causes him to get a nice lifesteal from most of his damage output. This in a way turns Doom into a non channeling version of Pugna's Life Drain. Get some armor before you get this item however, since raw health is not great on Lucy.
Lotus Orb: This is your top choice item if you need a dispel for silences or hexes on your allies and its either too late for a Greaves or someone else got it. The orb provides high armor and decent regen, so its also full of useful stats to Doom.
Eye of Skadi: A nice item for making Doom more durable, while also providing a massive boost to his mana pool, and the UAM makes for easy chasing of a hero you're attacking.
Heaven's Halberd: If the game calls for it, whether against annoying Medusas or Snipers. The evasion can be pretty nice too for tanking right clicks, but don't use it as a substitute for armor.
Silver Edge: Well.. it's an upgrade to Shadow Blade if you have the money. The damage reduction is very good against right clicking heroes, and another low cooldown break is potentially useful if Doom is on cooldown.
Linken's Sphere: If the enemies have really dangerous single target initiation skills like Nether Swap, Primal Roar or Flaming Lasso, they can kill you before you even get Doom out. This is the item to protect you in that case, and the stats are not bad either.
Rod of Atos: The stats are nice, but there is only one reason you're getting this item, and that's to break enemy linken's spheres easily from 1200 range so you can actually Doom them. This is the best possible way for Doom to deal with Linkens, since it casts instantly from such a high range, faster and farther than all of Doom's creep skills.
Scythe of Vyse: A kind of rare pickup, since Doom's ultimate does what Scythe does but better. However, against a really mobile hero like say Storm Spirit or Anti-Mage, the cast point of Doom is a liability, and there will be certain games where you just need to get Vyse for the instant disable. Plus, it is relatively low cooldown compared to Doom's ult, so its pretty useful still.
Abyssal Blade: A good item in general in the very late game, pairs well with blink against carries. Allows Doom to stun people when Doom is down, or just to control more people on their team. A very rare buy.
Moon Shard: The last meal of the game, once you're out of things to buy. Get Travels 2 before this though.

Do Not Buy:
Divine Rapier: A right clicker Doom attacks slower than other heroes, and not hard to kite. Rapier has its purposes, but not on Doom.
Battle Fury: Doom has pretty sad right click due to a lack of attack speed, and this item does not increase his survival at all.
Aether Lens: It only really helps one skill, Doom, a skill with only 550 range. However, Lucy still needs to stay near his target to kill his Doomed target, so Aether Lens does not reach its potential on this hero.
Heart of Tarrasque: This item is simply outclassed by Eye of Skadi or armor items in terms of the tanking offered. The regeneration seems nice, but it's not worth the hefty price when Scorched Earth and items like Tranquil boots can do the job.
Bloodstone: Doom's mana expenditures are not that high, and why are you buying this when you can buy Octarine?
Dagon: ....
Mask of Madness: Doom's skillset is not suited for MoM. He wants to tank up, not get more fragile.
Orchid Malevolence: Unfortunately, this item's active is outclassed by Doom, and the stats are still rather useless on him.
Glimmer Cape: Doom generally avoids making these cheap dead-end support items due to how much money he can make, he should probably get pipe if he needs magic resistance.
Desolator: Doom deals rather lacking physical damage, and will have trouble getting close to attack people. Useful against towers, but that's about it. Outclassed by AC.
Monkey King Bar, Daedalus, Mjollnir, Sange and Yasha: Don't augment Doom's right click. It's too weak and he does more damage by running around and using Infernal Blade on 4 second cooldown. Also, 2.0 BAT.

Major Extension Builds

Here are some item paths to consider.

Late Game Anti-Core Tank (Inevitable) This build is my default one, and it aims to shut down the enemy cores while tanking up. The Point Booster comes first due to its nice stats, the Blink is gotten to position yourself to get kills and its important later with the Shiva's Guard. Once you have Aghs, you deal a ton of damage, and Refresher makes late game fights easy as hell as both Doom and Shivas can be refreshed. Octarine is the preferred luxury afterward since it means more devours (which translates to more buyback gold), and a lower cooldown on Refresher and Doom. This build is very late game centric and selfish in that it's devoted to shutting down enemy heroes instead of helping your team. If Aghs is not great this game, you may want to substitute it with Scythe of Vyse or Rod of Atos. Rod of Atos is also good to be picked up after Shivas since it is distinctly possible enemies will get Linkens.

or or then or

Midgame Fighter and Aura Man (Guardian) This build is centric on providing auras for your team to assist them in fighting, since your hero is very tanky. This kind of build is preferred if you don't need the longer burn and break from aghs. This is more suited for early teamfighting instead of ganking or killing key targets. This requires you to have a bunch of trust in your teammates to finish off your doomed targets so its preferred to run this with friends.

or

Ganker and High Movespeed (Hunter) This build is suited for solo killing as Doom, and comparably very poor for teamfights. Essentially, you Shadow Blade in order to set up easy Dooms, or with Aghs, you run up to someone, Doom them, and then follow them with Shadow Blade until they die from the Aghs Doom. Scythe or Atos is taken afterwards so you can continue chasing your targets, and generally helps ganking when your Doom is on cooldown, since a slow target is more likely to get cut to death. This is very effective against ricing heroes and splitpushing ones.

Midgame DPS Carry (Destroyer) This is the carry Doom build, and generally not recommended. It is looking to get a Radiance as soon as possible and start fighting. Travels is a good pickup afterward to easily farm creepwaves with your Radiance, as well as join fights easily. Shivas then follows, as it is needed to protect Lucy from physical attacks, and BKB to protect from disables while Doom runs in during his midgame and just kills everything, and can easily snowball into victory. Items afterwards are just good for dealing AOE damage and tanking better. This build has a specific timing window (get Radiance at 15 minutes at the latest) in order to win easily, so if laning is shut down by someone tough like Undying and/or Ogre Magi, you may just want to switch to one of the other builds.

Hero Interaction

Let's see how Lucy interacts with other heroes.

Hell's Bells: Doom's Friends



Armor Givers: Doom has major armor issues but benefits strongly from armor, so any hero that can grant it to him easily is his friend.



Initiators: Doom generally benefits from someone who can do a preliminary disable so he can move in and get an easy Doom and deal his damage. AOE stuns in general greatly help Doom's teamfighting.



Roshan Takers: Heroes that take Roshan easily are Doom's friends, because of how good aegis is at countering Doom, especially if gotten as part of an early game high ground push. At the very least, taking Roshan on your own team will delay such a high ground push for at least 8 minutes.



Early Game, mana is a problem for Lucifer, but Maiden's aura is effective for making sure he has enough mana to cast his spells throughout the laning phase, which makes his most vulnerable time much less vulnerable.



Venomancer has some deadly DoT spells, especially his ultimate, Poison Nova, which cannot be fatal, but it happens to stack well with Doom's ultimate and scorched earth to add up to a lot of damage, and the combo of nova and doom is certain death.



Doom has one of the best Aghs in the game, but also struggles with his items as the game goes late. Alchemist giving Doom an Aghs makes him a real menace, since he can focus on other items but still get the Aghs as the game goes late. Plus, Doom may make a lot of money, but he doesn't have to steal Alch's creeps to do it too, so they can be chosen together. The AOE damage offered by Acid Spray is a plus.



False Promise doubles all healing received from Scorched Earth, as well as prevents targets from stopping Doom (the ultimate) from coming out. Fate's Edict makes Doom immune to all magical nukes, and the disarm doesn't affect him that much compared to a lot of heroes. A well played Oracle will remove any initiation stuns on Doom that the opponent use to try to burst him down with and make sure that Doom is truly unavoidable and unkillable.

Ultimate Sacrifice: Doom's Prey

* * *

Armletters: Heroes who wield Armlet have impressive fighting skills, but if they get Doomed with it on, there is virtually no chance of survival, because Armlet adds an additional 40 dps to Doom if it can't be turned off.

*Oddly enough however, a lot of Armlet carriers tend to be Lucy's counters as well.

outworld devourer

These heroes rely very much on their spells in order to create havoc in fights, and are the best targets in the game for Doom. Some of them can be hard to catch, but once you do, they are exceedingly useless.



The Immortal Bros: These dudes have dangerous spells that heavily prolong the survival of their allies and this makes them godly in pubs. Doom them, and they aren't an issue anymore. Abaddon can't even escape with his ult like he always does. This is a rare case where Dooming a support is often preferable to Dooming a carry.



Tidehunter has a way out of every situation thanks to Kraken's Shell, so his ult will always come out. Unless of course someone Dooms him. Someone being you. You still need to initiate well to catch him, so it can be tough.



Carries that take a while to activate: These carries will be farming all day, and then realize that the farm means nothing in the face of a Doom that already got his Aghs and some armor, the unbeatable Dota Boss.

Fireproof Fools: Doom's Enemies



Healers: Doom is a damage over time spell, so that means that healers that stay on your Doomed target will prevent them from dying, or at least make it a lot less likely that they will.



Illusion Heroes: Illusion heroes are really hard for Doom to catch. Phantom Lancer is the most difficult to spot due to him shuffling his illusions around, and his mana burning can stop Doom from coming out entirely in the panic period. Chaos Knight creates the confusion with his ult, and once his illusions are out, using Doom on him will make little difference on the outcome of the fight, because once they're out, you're all in trouble. Siren will rarely be fighting directly, so she is rather difficult to catch with Doom as well. Terrorblade is not included here because the real terrorblade is visible to over his illusions.



Armor Killers: Doom struggles with some pretty sad armor, and while he's great with armor, the reverse is true too. Scorched Earth's healing becomes very weak if you're taking 25% more damage a bit because of your armor being destroyed. Counter with more armor or if it's dispellable, with a Lotus Orb.



Lifesteal: A way to stay alive when Doomed is to make lifesteal, which doesn't get disabled, and then just hit things. You can only respond to this by making armor so that less life is stolen from you. This loses much of its effectiveness as the game goes on and once you have your Aghs, but it can make midgame hard.



Pickoff Artists: Basically, any hero who can jump on Lucy in the beginning of a fight and kill him before he gets Doom out is a major foe for him. Linken's serves you well here.



Maledict makes it so you have a much lower chance of getting out of the front lines alive, even with your high regeneration. Death Ward is also a physical damage force, so it's quite dangerous against Doom. Some magic resistance and armor both help a lot against him.



Ice Blast stops all regeneration from Scorched Earth, which can destroy Doom's midgame survivability. Him being able to essentially convert magical damage to pure damage makes Doom a bit less resistant to getting nuked down as well. Try to disengage if you get blasted, otherwise, magic resistance is useful here.



Well well, it's Sylla, the guy that puts most of his important items on the bear. Yet, you have to kill the hero, or else he'll just summon another bear, and the entangle can make your movespeed useless. It can be troublesome, so try to eat up his map space with aggression so you can easily outfarm him.



Doom will kill the target. But some targets won't stay down. Wraith King's built in Reincarnation means that he is well equipped to deal with Lucy's ultimate, since the first life is expendable for a Wraith King. WK can even just jump on you solo and force you to bait it or die. He fights early too, so be careful. Try to kite him if you can. A Necrobook is possibly useful too.



Meepo has 5 heroes. Doom one, and what happens? Not that much. It's getting hurt, but he's still gonna wreck a lot of faces. The slow and the root prevents Doom from escaping as well. Tank up, buy BKB if you must, the poof combo is deadly. Also, Meepo can have a Meepo deny him, and it counts as suicide.



Alchemist is highly resistant to Doom if he already got his ultimate and acid spray out. He regenerates so much that Doom doesn't hurt him, and he's mostly relying on his brute force from his form. Plus, Alch farms quite a bit faster than Doom so he'll almost surely be richer than you. Try to kite him, Doom him while he charges his concoction, or catch him while out of his chemical rage form.



Morphling is the best hero for baiting out Doom with his replicates, and he's a linken's and manta buyer who has a very quick escape for ratting. He can even hybrid as an ally without any penalty if that hybrid dies. You may need to counter Morph with Atos to pop his sphere, or a hex to check to see if the target you're dooming is real or not.



This spell shield blocks Doom, nuff said. You can break it with creep abilities like Mana Burn, Chain Lightning, and Ensnare, but this is almost definitely gonna break your initiation due to the cast point of the skills. You can get an Atos to pop a Linken's Sphere pretty easily, and its the best item for doing so. If the enemy has both BKB and Linken's you just can't break it unless you have an Abyssal Blade. If that's the case, just try to survive the duration and hope they don't kill you before the BKB runs out of time.

Doom in Pubs and Competitive

by Nezermoar
"I'm everywhere."

Doom is a hero that will always have a place in pubs. Probably because he prints money and people like killing creeps for some reason. Many players play Doom wrong, pretty much going full greed, jungling for 20 minutes with a midas and often screwing their lanes up to an insane level while taking the only place the laners could possibly recover for himself. However, otherwise, Doom's place in pubs is notable because he can shut down one player, and in pubs, it may often be one player carrying his team, and now (Dooms him), he's not.

In competitive Dota, Doom is and has always been a pickup to counter high mobility core heroes like Storm and Weaver. He is a remarkably powerful offlaner because he will get farm even if you stick multiple heroes on him to contest it. The downside was always the amount of time it took to come online. Due to the nature of his ultimate, he's one of those heroes that is very difficult to balance, and is either very in the meta, or not at all.

Conclusion

Doom is one tanky hero defined by his greed, but is among the most dangerous late game heroes with probably the best disable in the game. He is strong against many, and weak against few, so he stands as a good example of a long term investment that will pay off.

If you enjoyed this guide, you may enjoy my others, which can be found here:

http://www.dotafire.com/profile/cuttleboss-39555

People to thank:
The artists on deviantart, you people are great!
Sando, as the guide master of Dotafire, for being really inspirational.
Sp12, for influencing my guide writing style and structure.