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Healing Salve
ClarityClarityClarity
Iron BranchIron BranchIron Branch
Animal Courier
Magic Wand
Boots of Speed
Town Portal Scroll
Sage's Mask
Robe of the Magi
Oblivion Staff
Perseverance
Energy Booster
Arcane Boots
Perseverance
Orchid Malevolence
Force Staff
Scythe of Vyse
Soul Booster
Refresher Orb
Bloodstone
Necronomicon
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1 | 8 | 9 | 10 |  |
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3 | 12 | 13 | 14 |  |
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2 | 4 | 5 | 7 |  |
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6 | 11 | 16 |  |
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15 | 17 | 18 |
This is one way to play Death Prophet- it's obviously not the only way, but it's slightly different from the other builds, so I thought I'd share it. I'm including the way I build her both as support and a strong pusher, so this may be a bit wordy- however I'll try to mark the paragraphs that are specific to either build.
Note that this is a build made by (and probably for) a casual player.
Hero Pros and Cons:
Pros:
-straight forward skills
-decent attack range
-powerful ultimate
-pushes or supports well
-awesome voice
Cons:
-squishy
-slow attack animation/speed can make last hitting hard until you get used to her
-no real nuke
-weak without items
-you might not like the voice if you hate French accents
Locust Swarm
This is going to be the skill you use the most. It's your main damage ability- plus it has a low cooldown and has a good range & radius. Once you have Witchcraft maxed this is almost spammable and will help you put out damage and push creeps quickly.
Silence
This skill is absolutely great in team fights, especially if the enemy team is clustered at all. While in lane, it can also save you by either letting you escape since they can't cast that one last spell they need, or deterring an aggressive enemy. While the cooldown isn't extremely long (you can probably cast at least two during a team fight) it is long enough that you'll want to wait for opportune moments.
Witchcraft
This passive makes your life in the lane much better. This is going to lower your cooldowns, increase your movement speed, and lower the mana cost of your spells. With this maxed, your Locust Swarm cooldown is halved, and the mana cost drops by 25 points, which is useful before you get all your mana regen items.
Most guides do not max Witchcraft right away, however I think it's a great tool for staying in your lane- and, if something bad happens, getting back to base or back to your lane faster. I think the benefits of having this maxed far outweight the extra damage you'll get from maxing Locust Swarm first.
Exorcism
This is a great skill. It will save your life when used correctly, give you some sustain during a push if you get hurt, and make taking down towers a snap. Because this damages structures as well as enemies, it's very useful to knock down towers. Because you get so much health back it can bring you back from the brink of death if timed correctly. IMPORTANT: because you do NOT get health back right away, but instead at the end of the skill when the spirits return, if you're using this to get health back, it's wise to cast it sooner rather than later.
With your starting items, it's your choice between Healing Salve and 
Tango. Because Death Prophet is a ranged hero, you're more likely to be able to get the full extent of your potions, and it's more powerful. However, if you'd rather eat trees, they're both giving you health- so go for it.
If someone else gets the Animal Courier you can either get one less Clarity and grab the 
Magic Stick, or you can grab a few more of your healing/mana potions.
Once in lane, use Locust Swarm when enemies are close to the creep wave and you can hit the creeps and the enemies. This is going to give you good harass and should make it a bit easier to last hit a few creeps. You'll want to be careful not to push the creeps TOO much-- unless between yourself and your lane partner you're confident you can get an early push and knock down their tower.
For the next purchase, you can go two ways: if the enemies are using enough spells that you'll get a few charges, go ahead and get Magic Wand. If the enemies aren't casting many spells, you can get Sage's Mask first instead, as you'll be casting Locust Swarm often enough to want the mana regen.
Keep up harassing, but do it wisely so you can stay in the lane as much as possible. Use the courier or the side shop instead of going back unless you are really low. Once you hit level 6, if you're low on health but not mana, you can use Exorcism to regain health, but it does have a 100 second cooldown, so this can't be done extremely often.
You should be able to push down your opposing turret fairly quickly if your enemy isn't super aggressive and your lane partner can help with the pushes. Once the opposing tower is down, keep an eye on your lane, but also see if there are any other lanes that need help. I recommend keeping a Town Portal Scroll on you at all times if you can manage it. Don't waste it to go back to base- but if it means saving a tower, saving a teammate, or counter-pushing, it's almost always worth it.
At this point you're probably not going to be able to 1v1 someone very easily, unless you have your ult up and they aren't hitting very hard. You'll be better suited to killing casters, as your silence will be more effective against them than melee heroes. I suggest keeping close to someone, preferably your carry or a ganker. With the addition of your Silence and moderate dps, you should easily be capable of a 2v2.
If teamfights start, make sure to land your Silence where it will either hit a champion that needs killed right away, or, preferably, as many of the enemy team as possible. Don't wait too long to cast Exorcism as it stays in play for 30 seconds, and if you're taking any damage, you're not going to get any of that tasty health back until the skill is done.
If you're going "Pusher" route, you're going to want to build Oblivion Staff as soon as you can. As all of the pieces other than the 
Quarterstaff are directly helpful, you can even buy this one piece by piece fairly easily. Once you have your first Oblivion Staff buy another. You'll be putting them together into Orchid Malevolence, and the stats are nice so even with them just as Oblivion Staff they're still helping you out.
While the active on Orchid Malevolence isn't directly helpful to pushing, it will help in team fights and small battles. It also has good stats, the intelligence and mana regen will help you greatly.
If you're going the "Support" route, grab the 
Ring of Basilius and 
Headdress first. This will hugely help your mana regen so you can stay in lane, as well as giving out the aura. Build the Headdress into 
Mekansm once you have enough gold. After those are complete, you can start working on 
Drum of Endurance * see "Situational" as you may decide to swap this for a different item depending on how your game is going*
Regardless of if you're going Push or Support, if you find yourself suddenly sitting on a full 1k gold, I suggest getting the Energy Booster and make Arcane Boots. (I know I personally don't like running about with too much gold at once if I can help it.) If you're going "Push" and having issues staying in the lane, you can grab Perseverance first. (With the support items, you should have enough mana regen without this.)
At this point you should be right in the midst of team fights and big pushes. The pushes are going to be where you really shine- remember that your Exorcism hits structures, so go ahead and use it on towers to help knock them over and then get out on a quick push especially.
Make sure you're using your Silence to either disable a specific dangerous hero or landing it on as many people as possible.
While you'll want to keep in the back of battles, don't stand too far back, as you'll want to be able to land your Locust Swarm. Also your Exorcism spirits are going to be in a ring around you, and while the distance is pretty good, if you're too far away you may not get as much out of it compared to when you're closer to the battle.
Also don't forget about your Arcane Boots, or if you went support, your other active items!
Okay- you've made it past the middle of the game, and now you need to buy some items to round out your build. At this point you have some options, depending on the strengths of yourself, your team, and the strengths and weaknesses of the other team (and also how fed you are). I've broken the last section into one part per build: pusher and support.
Force Staff: you can get this staff for a couple reasons. With the active you can displace enemies in a team fight or push yourself (or an ally) forward to either chase or escape. This is also relatively cheap if you're a bit starved and need cheap stats.
Scythe of Vyse: while this item has decent stats for Intelligence and mana regen, the real reason to get this staff is the active. If there's a particularly dangerous enemy you can take them out of the picture for a few minutes. There are a lot of times when someone being hexed makes your life a lot easier.
Refresher Orb: one of the two things you can make out of Perseverance. The stats are ok, though not amazing. The reason to get this is completely for it's active. This can net you an extra ult, or get more uses out of your items. Note: I haven't gotten a chance to test what happens if you cast Exorcism and then use this. Because it stays in effect for 30 seconds, it may not refresh. If it does, I'm not sure if casting the spell again will cause it to stack or override the previous cast. I'll update this once I get a chance to test it. However, even if your ult needs to be finished, this will still knock the cooldown off once it's done, and reboot your items too boot.
Soul Booster: this is going to be a decent item to grab if you need just a bit more health and mana. The regen isn't superb, but it's decent, and it can be built into Bloodstone so it's not only giving you health and mana, but also something that is upgradable if get enough gold.
Bloodstone: one of the two things you can make out of Perseverance. The stats are going to give you a strong boost in health, mana, and regen. The passive on this can be useful, however it is quite expensive.
Necronomicon: ((untested)) the stats on this will be useful, and while I haven't used it yet, the active seems like it would be useful- two extra minions aren't going to hurt when you're trying to push down a lane or destroy a tower. Once I test this I'll update this item.
Scythe of Vyse: while this item has decent stats for Intelligence and mana regen, the real reason to get this staff is the active. If there's a particularly dangerous enemy you can take them out of the picture for a few minutes. There are a lot of times when someone being hexed makes your life a lot easier.
Force Staff: you can get this staff for a couple reasons. With the active you can displace enemies in a team fight or push yourself (or an ally) forward to either chase or escape. This is also relatively cheap if you're a bit starved and need cheap stats.
Vladmir's Offering: this is most useful if you have some attack-heavy heroes you're supporting. The armor, regen, and damage auras are good, but the lifesteal aura will benefit the attack based heroes more than the casting ones. Important: this doesn't stack, so make sure no one else is buying one before you make yours!
Urn of Shadows: the active on this item can be extremely useful, however, notice that only one Urn will get a charge per enemy death. If more than one of these is in play on your team, you may not get many (or any) charges, since most of the time you won't be in the front where the action is, so keep that in mind before building this.
Pipe of Insight: the regen and magic resist on this are nice, but if you're support the main part of this is the active. This will shield your allies from spells for a short time. If you have this and the Mekansm you can do some pretty decent shielding and healing.
Shiva's Guard: this has great stats but is fairly expensive, however the active can be useful, especially if you don't have a ton of slows and snares readily available on your team already.
I hope this guide has given you some ideas on how to build Death Prophet. She's quite fun and surprisingly versatile.
I will try to test out some of the untested items and come back and update those item descriptions (or perhaps even the build order) once I have more data.
Votes and Comments are appreciated- if you down vote this, do please leave a comment as to why, so I can improve it.
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