Queen of Pain New Meta (No Boots)

Pros and Cons

Pros: Easy to block the creep wave with to have better positioning for last hitting Mid lane dominance with continuous harass from Shadow Strike Escape Mechanism to avoid ganks or survive tower dives with Blink Best Rune control due to Blink mobility High Burst Damage from Scream of Pain and Sonic Wave Chasing power with Shadow Strike slow and Blink Can transition into carry role with a sufficient gold advantage

Cons: Squishy Early Mana Problems is countered by silences, which prevent escape and damage dealing abilities

• Stat Gain items such as Drum of Endurance, Linken's Sphere and Aghanim's Scepter provide plenty of strength gain and a slight armour bonus from agility points
• Eul's Scepter of Divinity provides enough mana regen to sustain blinking around the map and once perseverance is bought, levels 3-4 of blink will be sustained
• Eul's Scepter of Divinity Cyclone purges silences so you can easily escape or stay to fight if necessary

Abilities

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Type: Damage: Targets:

Active Magical Enemy Units

Hurls a poisoned dagger which deals large initial damage, and then deals damage over time. The poisoned unit has its movement speed slowed for 15 seconds

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Notes:
[Q] Shadow Strike : In lane harass, zones enemy out of lane to reduce their farming potential. If your victim remains in lane right click harass as well, the movement slow makes it more difficult for them to escape you. When duration and cooldown have ended refresh it. Can be used to permanently prevent enemies from using Bottle unless they stand behind their tower while you free farm.

• Damage over time is dealt to the affected units every 3 seconds during 15 seconds.
• Affected units slowly regain their original movement speed every second during the 15 seconds.
• Units afflicted by Shadow Strike can be denied by their allies when their HP drops below 25% of their maximum health.

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Type: Targets:

Active Target Point

Short distance teleportation that allows Queen of Pain to move in and out of combat.

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Notes:
[W] Blink: The ability that makes QoP as mobile as she is, can easily escape ganks, pick up runes before opposing mid hero, move between lanes quickly or to base and back to lane. Allows continuous manipulation of your positioning so you can get in range for
Shadow Strikes or Scream of Pain's and to line up Sonic Waves to hit the whole enemy team. Can be cast immediately after Town Portal Scroll from base so you can extend the distance from the tower that you can teleport to and dodge whatever spells may be waiting when you arrive to defend a tower.

• Unlike Blink Dagger, Queen of Pain's Blink remains operational to maximum range regardless of where it was cast.
• You can use Blink to dodge incoming projectiles.
• Blink has a 0.33 seconds teleportation delay.
• Used in conjunction with Eul's Scepter of Divinity for easy escapes

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Type: Damage: Targets:

Active Magical No target

The Queen of Pain lets loose a piercing scream around her, damaging nearby enemies.

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Notes:
[E] Scream of Pain: Queen of Pain's signature ability and main source of damage. Effective use of blink is necessary to use this spell well. In combination a defensive scream would be before blinking and offensive screams are immediately after blinking next to target enemies. It does damage enemies that aren't in sight so can be used if an invisible hero tries to escape on low health or if enemies are juking through trees within the range.

• Will hit invisible units.
• Can hit units inside fog of war.
• Has an instant cast time
• Cannot be disjointed.

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Type: Damage: Targets:

Active Magical Point Target

Creates a gigantic wave of sound in front of Queen of Pain, dealing heavy damage to all enemy units in its wake.

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Notes:
[R] Sonic Wave: Massive AoE nuke in mid to late game, best used in conjunction with team mates that can hold the enemy team together in a position like Enigma, Faceless Void, Disruptor, Warlock, Dark Seer, Puck, etc and especially Magnus (RP has the absolute best positioning capabilities for Sonic Wave and a follow up Scream of Pain)
With Aghanims Scepter can be used in pretty much every fight with 40s cooldown.
Warning: level 1 is pretty much useless, only skill it at lvl 10, save it till you get the 2nd level in it at lvl 11 before using it.

• Will hit invisible units.
• Can hit units inside fog of war.
• Radius: 100 - 300 with a distance of 800 : Can do damage to enemies up to 1200 units away
  
  *Aghanims Scepter

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Ability Progression Explained

Blink: 1/4/9/13 Always skilled 1st to avoid possible First Blood ganks or to assist in one with better lvl 1 mobility than anyone.

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Shadow Strike: 2/3/12/14 This is your harass early in the game, so 2 consecutive levels give it decent damage and slow and most importantly the cooldown drops below duration for permanent harass (can waste/prevent enemy Clarity, Healing Salve & Bottle charges over its duration)

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Scream of Pain: 5/6/7/8 From level 4 prioritized to get maximum damage from it early on (max at lvl 8), this is your most important source of damage throughout the game.

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Sonic Wave: 10/11/16 I leave Sonic Wave for level 10-11 because scream of pain is a more efficient damage dealer early on with only 50 less damage (lvl 4) than lvl 1 Sonic wave, 19x shorter cooldown and 110 less mana cost (you could effectively use 2 Scream of Pain's for 600 damage instead of 1 Sonic Wave for 350 damage with just 30 more mana) After you level your ulti to lvl 2 you just need to finish leveling Shadow Strike to be used more often in fights and blink to be able to change your positioning in fights more often.

Starting

All heroes should start with Tango for keeping up health in lane
The Gauntlets of Strength and Circlet are necessary for building the Bracer which can be brought to you by the courier during 1st wave of creeps.
The Bracer is necessary for QoP because she is naturally quite squishy so the extra 114 hp will help a lot in lane and it can be built into Drum of Endurance later on.

In terms of starting game-play, don't forget to block creeps to gain the advantage in the mid lane, QoP is incredibly easy to block with, even if you fail the block you can get away with Blinking ahead of the wave to try again, you will regenerate the mana spent before you need to use mana again so it will have no effect on your mana in lane.

Last hitting is quite difficult at 1st with this build because at 1st you are focusing health over damage with the Bracer instead of Null Talisman, but with some skill/practice you can get the right timing soon enough.

Early Midlane

When you get your Bottle you can start controlling runes, the 4 min rune should be the 1st rune to bottle depending on how quickly you can farm the bottle after the bracer. Once you have your bottle your early mana and health needs will be satisfied.
Since QoP is extremely mobile you will likely get every single rune if you pay attention to rune spawns and your team has a ward at at least 1 rune (preferably bot rune since top is easy to check without a ward because it is closer to walk to, only 1 rune ward is necessary because if it doesn't show the rune you can assume the rune is at the opposite rune spawn)
when you have the gold pick up a Void Stone from the secret shop to enhance mana regen since you are running low from constantly harassing with Shadow Strike
Have Euls in your quick buy and buy the components as they can be bought.

Once Eul's Scepter of Divinity is complete you will have 5.7-6 mana/sec regen which will keep your mana regenerating enough during blink cooldown to blink again nearly for free (lvl 2 blink cd: 10s * 6 = 60 mana = free blink ; when yo get lvl 3 Blink you will have a Perseverance as well which results in +-11 mana/s which can also easily sustain lvl 4 Blinking.
Being able to blink whenever off cooldown is faster than if you bought boots.
Furthermore you will be upgrading your Bracer into a [[drum which will bring your movement speed up to 356 and improve all stats by 9 which will make you more tanky with 171hp, increases mana pool by 117 and damage by 12 as well as making your last hitting animation smoother with attack speed.
Back to the benefits of Euls Scepter. The synergy it has with this hero is quite special, it gives her a guaranteed escape in nearly all situations.

• If you need to escape it can be used to wait out the cooldown of your blink and gives you time to pick the best place to blink to when you land, the blink will occur as soon as you land so disables can't stop you unless you land in a disruptor ulti
• Can be used to dodge projectiles if you can't blink away (blink cast animation is quite long so Euls is more reliable)
• The most powerful use for the Cyclone that most people seem to forget is that it can remove the main counter to QoP, silences: While playing against heroes like Drow or Death Prophet among others with AoE silences that ignore Linkens Sphere QoP would be vulnerable without her escape or damage dealing spells and would probably end up dying, but with Cyclone the silence can be purged and you can easily stand and fight or blink away if you need to. Effectively countering your counter similar to Pudge countering Clockwerk with Eul's.

Midgame

Once you have your Bottle, Eul's Scepter of Divinity and Drum of Endurance you can effectively gank a side lane. An offensive cyclone could lock down 1 enemy while you Shadow Strike to slow the other so your team mates in the lane focus them down and then move on to killing the cycloned enemy afterwards.
While the drums aura speeds up your team your Shadow Strike will slow enemies and probably guarantee a kill or if you are diving a tower for kills you can activate the drums to help escape quicker especially when health is low.
When you've bought your Perseverance your mana regen will be over 10 which means your level 4 blink will be free when moving around the map (6s * 11 = 66 mana = total blink cost regenerated over cooldown).
The most difficult part of mid game with QoP in my opinion is the time before finishing your Linkens Sphere because you are still vulnerable to disables when blink and cyclone are on cooldown. But when you finally get Linkens Sphere you should be able to avoid death in pretty much every gank or teamfight. Your mana regen at this stage is enough to sustain till you finish your Aghanims Scepter which is ideal for teamfight dominance when you get it. Slightly less damage than a Dagon 5 being inflicted on the entire team when you use Sonic Wave will give your team an advantage in fights and being able to use it 3x more often will ensure you can use it in every single fight or even use it to kill large creep camp stacks to flash-farm late-game items if there isn't much fighting happening.

Late Game

Now your core Eul's Scepter of Divinity, Linkens Sphere and Aghanims Scepter are complete every item you get now is situational.

• If enemies have started packing BKB's you'll want to build a Scythe of Vyse to prevent them from activating it. Pigs can't use items, so kill them quickly before they can.
• If you are in need of more right click power, or you need to shut down heroes with powerful offensive or escape abilities, or you just want to increase damage taken by a single enemy you will want to pick up an Orchid Malevolence which gives a good boost to attack speed, intelligence and damage as well as more than enough mana regen to not need to return to base for mana.
  Another handy thing to remember is that Orchid is an excellent counter to heroes like Silencer, Outworld Devourer, Clinks, Viper etc. because their main damage output is from their Attack Modifiers which cannot be used while silenced
• If your team lacks initiation or you are taking too much right click damage you can invest in a Shiva's Guard, the increased armor and attack speed slow aura will slow down the rate at which you take damage which is necessary if you have to be the one blinking in for the initiation. Arctic Blast and Scream of Pain together result in 500 damage to the enemies you blink into and will slow them enough for your team to follow through. A well positioned Sonic Wave will do your team more favors with a total or 1225 damage being done to the enemy team before the fight even begins, supports will not last long.
• If you want to be mean and tanky, get yourself an Eye of Skadi. If you Shadow Strike your target while attacking they will be slowed by 85%, which is inescapable in most circumstances. You should have 2500-3000 hp as well which will mean you won't go down too easily.
• If your team is lacking sufficient carry you can pick up the usual carry items to compensate, Monkey King Bar ; Daedalus ; Desolator ; Divine Rapier (JK, Don't Play Game of Throws)
• If the game progresses to a base race consider getting Boots of Travel so you can teleport to pushed creeps to push a finish or to TP back to base to defend.
• Special mention to Radiance, since you are really mobile and quite difficult to kill you would be able to utilize the radiance burn damage pretty well in teamfights or even when chasing enemies, you can blink to keep enemies in the AoE. This will also help with pushing and farming creep waves since you can wait for a few seconds then Scream of Pain the whole creep wave down at once. The drawback of Radiance is that it adds absolutely no stats or survivability, but by the time you have it your mana regen will be sufficient and strength stats should be enough, still only pick up if you are comfortably winning already.
• If you just want to burst down 1 key player in a fight or a pesky split pusher r[A]ts pick up a Dagon which will increase your burst damage beyond some health pools or at least be enough for a few auto attacks to finish them off.
• Ethereal Blade, since you are already getting a lot of stat gain items the nuke will be quite good, it can also remove an enemy carry from the fight while you still have full spell functionality and immunity from physical harm. Can be used for epic fountain dives as well.
• If your opponents start getting too tanky for your ultimate to make a difference get a Refresher Orb to double it's potency in a fight.
• If you are needing to counter push a pushing team or counter invisibility pick up a Necronomicon so you can summon pushing power where needed or when you feel an invisible initiation will occur. Be sure to micro the melee creep to be in enemy AoE spells so it has a chance to do pure damage to an enemy on death and use the mana burn from the ranged creep on enemy heroes when you can.
• If the enemy team is overwhelming you with disables it would be wise to pick up a Black King Bar to become unstoppable in teamfights with extra hp and magic immunity.

Extra

Any questions or suggestions are welcome in the comments, any items you use effectively on QoP and reasons why will be added to the build to make it more viable. (Just don't suggest boots, the point of this build is to replace boots with a more useful item that results in a stronger mid-late game)

Here is the Steam Community version of this guide for you to use in game:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=298525206
Try out this build in game and comment with success or downfalls. Feel free to comment with doubts, others may have the same questions as you, which I can answer about the guide and/or edit the guide to make it more clear.

Special thanks to TheSofa for making suggestions on improving this Guide and
http://www.dotafire.com/dota-2/blog/dr-d/guide-formatting-and-you
for helping me with formatting syntax which has been used to rework the guide from a very sad state to where it is now.