Helios Queen of Pain - The Pain Train

Introduction

AYO! Whats good home boys? Misha over here with an awesome, fantastic, sick, and analytical guide¦ Just kidding this is my first article =). Im open to suggestions and would like to hear some feedback!

Queen Of Pain aka QoP aka Akasha aka One of the Sexiest Chick in DotA is a high burst and mobile intelligence hero. A perfect hero if you want to jump around, kite, outplay and basically crush your enemies! However just like anything it takes practice and work to become ownage so keep trying!

Most of the time QoP goes mid, but can also be dominating safe lane solo. There are other possible scenarios but ill be focusing on these two. Akasha needs a lot of levels and farm, which leads to her role as 2/semi-carry/carry/ganker/snowballer. Without further ado lets get into skills

Skills

IMPORTANT Don't skill a spell until you get into the lane and actually need to use it. This touches upon many heroes in dota 2 and i can't stress enough how important it is. You can never 100% predict who is going to be in lane or if you are getting ganked. Note you can hover over your skill to see the range on it.

Shadow Strike is a powerful harassment and slowing spell in lane which later on will be used to dish out additional damage. If you are safe and can land this on your enemy solo. Enemies who go under 25% and have SS on them can be denied. Deals a total of 200/275/350/425 damage. Has fairly big swing animation so make sure you have line of sight of the enemy and/or time to cast it.

Blink one of greatest spell in the game. You can position yourself almost anywhere with few restrictions. If you are unsure of enemy gank skill it level 1 to save your butt. Note you can dodge incoming projectiles like Spirit Lance, Magic Missile, even Fireblast (really hard) after the spell has been cast. There are some exceptions like Storm Hammer. Unlike Blink Dagger, QoP Blink has no maximum range limit.

Scream of Pain Awesome instant AoE nuke that damages everyone around you.

Sonic Wave blows a big wave where you click in a huge aoe. Range 100 (Starting Radius) / 800 (Distance) / 300 (Final Radius). Also hits invis and fogged units.

Skill build

Alright skilling QoP is not too hard as you play more. If you are unsure of how to skill just go with build 1.

The first build

is most normal casual one. It is used when you know you can hit the enemy solo hero with a shadow strike and focuses on getting quick lvls in your scream of pain, followed by maxing your scream.

2nd build

I sometimes use against Templar Assassin, Puck and other invis (when you dont have detection obviously) or dodgy heroes who can avoid your. I usually do this when im lazy on trying hard to hit the ss or i want to prioritize getting blink maxed right after scream.

3rd build

This one is to dominate a melee hero like Dragon Knight, Beastmaster, etc. I do this sometimes when im in safelane or really want to set back my opponent. There are set backs on your blink lvls and scream/ult, but should be fine as long as you dont fall of to ganks or stupid deaths.

Other builds

I saw people max out their nukes with lvl 1 blink skill shadow strike and blink only, however i dont enjoy these as the first one hurts mobility and the other hinders burst.

As the game progresses, I sometimes keep shadow strike on lvl 1 or 2 and skill stats for more survivability or when i cant cast ss fast enough.

In Game Action

I very strongly suggest you read Chaq's guide to solo mid. It contains everything you need to know about how to lane mid and can help you out tremendously.

I won't go into too much blocking and hitting creeps, that's something you can practice and find out in other guides. Just know that blocking is very essential in mid lane and can win or lose you the lane.

Beginning

Hopefully you blocked your lane pretty good and the creeps are on your hill or at least in the middle. If it is on enemy's hill and he/she is good you won't be a happy camper. Try to right click your opponent and move back to force the creeps walk down from the hill (that way you don't have a miss chance).

Like i mentioned before if you the enemy heroes are in lane and you are not in danger, skill Shadow Strike or Scream of Pain (unless you are facing something like Razor that can use a static link to win the lane, then you need to go blink to avoid damage steal). To land shadow strike try to right click enemy hero to pull the creeps. When he/she goes for creep deny or last hit cast shadow strike and maybe hit if you wont tank too much creep and enemy attack damage. Note casting a spell won't pull lane agro, but right clicking/attack clicking the hero will use this to your advantage.

Try to harass, deny and last hit, find your balance. Make sure you harass enough and get creeps. If you see that you are falling behind cs switch to last hitting to harassing and etc. The rule of thumb is in even lane you should have 25 cs by 5 minutes.

If the lane is not in your favor say like Outworld Devourer or you just getting outplayed, try to get your bottle as fast as possible. Stay in fog and abuse creep agro.

When you get your bottle try to push the lane out with Scream of Pain 10-15 seconds before every 2 minute mark (so example 1:50, 3:50, etc). Hopefully you got competent support players and can spot the rune out, if not good luck with your guessing game.

Always watch for enemy support/gank heroes and know what they can do to you. It's nice to have someone with you who can call it in voice chat. If that is not the case, take in considerations the harmful hero color and check if they are missing of the map.

Later on

So you got your bottle boots, magic stick and a teleport scroll. You can either teleport to a different lane to gank, smoke, or kill your mid hero. Go for what you have the most chance of kill potential. As you get stronger you have more possibilities.

QoP skills with no right clicks and no magic reduction (about 25% for heroes) lvl 6: 432 dmg, lvl 7: 488 dmg (no shadowstrike).

The best scenario for you is if you can walk up to a hero hit, shadow strike, nuke and then blink do a hit or nuke and you boo-ya you got a kill! However as you must know this is rarely the case... Most of the time you need to cast your spells quick and get out. Take in calculations disables, teleports and missing heroes. Bottle up or heal and go back to farming or killing.

When you leave your lane pay attention to the enemy solo hero and think of what he is going to do. Inform your teammates on the positioning of the opponent enemy hero.

Items/Swag

Bottle very good item on mid heroes and even safe lane. Get it to replenish your mana and store runes!
Magic Wand burst of health and mana that you can use in many ways to outplay or just to leak your wounds
Power Treads awesome item to boost your physical dps as well as mana/health when needed. Get used to tread switching!
Orchid Malevolence perfect snowball item for QoP with cheap parts. Supplies physical damage, mana, mana regen and a silence with 25% damage boost after 5 seconds. Keep in mind that this item has to gotten quick or you can be useless for the rest of the game. The item doesn't provide any hp so i would say it's good to get before ~22 minutes mark (very situational in game) or later on to own heroes like Nyx Assassin, Dazzle, Outworld Devourer and etc (if they don't have Black King Bar of course).
Scythe of Vyse Alternative to Orchid or after Orchid item, very good, instant disable. Go for this if you cant rush your orchid and need a strong disable. The parts are really expensive though.
Necronomicon Honorable mention! I used to get this item before pushing became mainstream... Great item to spot out wards and invis heroes, push and dish out big damage with slow on shadow strike. I got the idea from Vigoss ownage days, many thanks to him!
Black King Bar Too many stuns/silences on yo head? Get this! I hate to get it as first item but sometimes you have to if you are getting owned. Also great item after Scythe or Orchid.
Linken's Sphere Expensive item, leans more towards being a carry or supporting your carry with the linken's block. Get it when you have lot's of gold if your carry needs protection or you want to carry.
Aghanim's Scepter I suggest not getting this as your first item because you won't be lvl 16 by the time you finish it. Good item for split pushing and/or defending.
Monkey King Bar, Daedalus and other DPS items are alternatives when you want to whack like a BAWS.

Good friends

Crystal Maiden awesome support with slow and disable AND mana aura. Who doesn't want that?
Just generally heroes with disables because you have none!

Pricks who own you

Mobility heroes with disables like Storm Spirit, Puck etc. Usually face you mid, if you don't jump on them, they jump you! Try to dominate the lane and later on predict their movement.

Outworld Devourer This guy is a disaster middle... Stealing your precious int and damage T_T. If you don't get super 2-3 ganks from your team or can outskill the player, don't go middle.

SHHH... Silence! Doom, Silencer, Bloodseeker Try avoiding these in fights as much as possible. Black King Bar is helpful but not against doom. Linken's Sphere is a decent gives you reaction time to blink out because people need to break the sphere first.
Rupture is a pain in the butt. When you blink you take additional damage and it goes through magic immunity. Best way is to carry teleport scroll.

Links/Credits where i got pictures

http://www.gosugamers.net/forums/topic/1044334-guide-queen-of-pain/
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=126146279#79679
http://dota2.gamepedia.com/Queen_of_Pain
http://chaqdota.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/chaqs-ultimate-guide-to-advanced-solo-middle/