"From the Outer Dark!" Illumination's Guide to Habringer - Outworld Devourer (Minor 6.82 Update)

Introduction

Hi there Dotafire !

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Outworld Devourer (Destroyer, as I prefer to call him from his oldschool Warcraft 3 Dota name of Obsidian Destroyer) is one of the strongest solo mid hero in the game right now, even after the few nerfs (and buffs, suprisingly) through recent patches (will be mentioned in the end of the guide). His skill set is very powerful for early laning dominance (especially in mid), so later in order to scale out into a strong DPS carry with a devastating AoE ultimate in teamfight. But he lack a good escape mechanism/a good disabler and is quite weak early, so he can be an easy target for early ganks if not played properly and cautious enough. With that all being said, let's go !

Hero Skills

Arcane Orb
The very unique DPS tool of Outworld Devourer himself, it's very special as the amount of damage dealt by it is based on your mana pool, and the larger your mana pool is, the more damage you deal. And it's PURE damage! So you get the point, you need more mana, means more intelligence, right ?

Astral Imprisonment
Basically what it does is to trap your opponent in the same place for a few seconds, while a portion of their intelligence stat go to your own for a certain amount of time. That's the first source of intelligence you can get. Not only that, you can use it on yourself or ally heroes for some crucial situations. Also worth mentioning, it cancels out channeling abilities, and can be used as a setup for some great followers like Mirana's Sacred Arrow or Pudge's Meat Hook. Very useful and versatile skill!

Essence Aura
A nice aura that synergies very well with the spammy Arcane Orb, having this means that you wouldn't have to worry too much about your own mana pool for damage as well as skills/items usage. And an aura is always good for the entire team, right ?

Sanity's Eclipse
You're an Intelligence hero with a good intelligence grow rate, plus the help of Astral Imprisonment, so here's the thing that helps you transfer all of your intelligence to a big AoE skill that at least deal a considerable amount damage to your opponent or render them almost out of mana. A crucial and devastatingly powerful ultimate, nuff said.

Skill Build / How to Play ?

ALWAYS priotize Astral Imprisonment and Essence Aura in your early levels, as it helps you dominate the lane easily over the opponent as you have more intelligence (mana + damage) to out-cs them, make them play defensively. When you reach level 6 with Sanity's Eclipse, you should likely have your Boots of Speed in your inventory, try to trade blows with the opposing hero, drop the ultimate to their face and finish them off with a couple attacks (watch for tower and rotating heroes as it can backfire heavily if you don't play carefully).

After level 6, you can consider getting an early level of Arcane Orb so you can last hit easier, deals some damage and not rely too much on Bottle to regen your mana because of Essence Aura. Otherwise, max out both the Astral Imprisonment and Essence Aura until level 10 when you must level up 1 point for the Arcane Orb. Find runes, gank the lanes frequently so you can give the other guys space for farm/rotation later on. As always, use Astral Imprisonment properly as it can be a huge factor in teamfights, so as Sanity's Eclipse. Don't forget to get your core items quickly and suitable with the in-game situation. Because there are a tons of it and I don't want to mention it here, it's up to you to decide.

Further on, max out your Arcane Orb and the Attribute Bonus, and Sanity's Eclipse at level 16. Once some big items of yours come into play, try to use it as much effective as possible, combining with your devastating power, winning teamfights shouldn't be a problem. Again, watch for ganks from the opposing team, always look for a safe place with vision, near the tower or ally heroes to farm if not going teamfight/tower pushing with your team.

Friends and Foes

Well, as Outworld Devourer is a mid solo hero, most of the time, so he doesn't need a babysitting hero at all. Unless you try to play him at the safe lane (which is not that effective compare to mid, not to mention the chance of being picked off in side lane is bigger), you can have some basic support heroes alongside with him. The real deal of combination with Outworld Devourer are good initiators/big teamfight heroes as afterward he can follow up with the deadly Sanity's Eclipse.

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The ever hot-picked cold lady in recent competitive games, her skillset is just about perfect for what Outworld Devourer lacks: a disable ( Frostbite) and a slow ( Crystal Nova), plus a mana regen aura ( Arcane Aura) that helps Outworld Devourer out quite a bit. In exchange, Essence Aura will help Crystal Maiden a lot so she can spam even more. Finally, you can't deny the awesomeness of Freezing Field plus Sanity's Eclipse right ? (Well at some points, Freezing Field is not quite reliable).



Another top pick, Nyx Assassin is now known as a solid offlaner, not just a support/mid laner in the past since the ultimate of his Vendetta is priotized to get in a shorter period of time. Impale is a nice disabler that can easily caught opponent with suprise, a perfect setup for Sanity's Eclipse. The rest of his skill set is good to finish off the remaining survived heroes after the powerful AoE ultimate of Outworld Devourer.

Now here's the combination that you can possibly have:

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You're an intelligence hero and magical-primary damage dealer. So what can counter you the most? Silence and magic immunity of course.



The name of his says it all. No question. The combination of Curse of the Silent and Last Word is very powerful. And yet, Global Silence will shut you down so they can focus on you or the rest of the team.



Same as the guy above. He has silence ( Ancient Seal) and also a tons of nuking and slow.



More silence ( Crippling Fear), yet in night time he's even more dangerous with the damage he can deal + the speed he can run, not to forget Void, more slow on the way.



Not just he can silent you up Bloodrage, but he also can tear you apart with his ultimate Rupture, chase you down to the earth because of Thirst.

doom bringer

Doom will render you useless, no joke. He also can chase and kill with his skill set with ease.



Another guy with silence ( Smoke Screen), plus the fact that he's invisibie (Permanent Invisibility) makes him even more danger for a relatively weak hero like Outworld Devourer.



Rage, a free Black King Bar is annoying for you to deal with, so as Open Wounds to slow you down and simply slap you to dead.



He has higher intelligence grow rate than Outworld Devourer, meaning that the ultimate Sanity's Eclipse won't be as much powerful on him compare to other heroes.



One of Outworld Devourer's counter in the mid lane, with his recent buff in Take Aim makes his range ridiculously long, laning against him will be a torture as he can harrass you down without being in range of Astral Imprisonment, yet to say Sniper is great on killing squishy heroes early on, Outworld Devourer is no exception.

By the fact of being weak early game, most heroes with strong slow/nuke and disable can easily kill you down.

Item Justification

Since Outworld Devourer will most likely head to mid lane, so I'll only include the mid lane build in this guide.

There's 2 builds you can choose depending on what heroes you have to face up in mid. Pretty straight forward. Build only Ironwood Branch and 1 set of Tango (in a more competitive game, ask the supports for a shared Tango) if you face up against melee hero or someone who doesn't have good laning control early, so you can get a fast Bottle for rune control. On the other hand, build a Null Talisman if you want a bit more damage for some early creeps, plus to deal with a stronger midlaner.

After getting your Bottle, you might want to get Boots of Speed as soon as possible, the addition movespeed is very crucial early for Outworld Devourer. From that, you can either complete the Power Treads or move right up to any core items. Here's the explaination:

Typical item for Outworld Devourer players, gives you some intelligence, a small amount of regeneration, and a repositioning ability that helps you initiate or run away.

Back in a few previous patches, when Essence Aura still works with item, this is a nice pickup, helps you pushing/teamfighting quite good early on. But since, the aura doesn't trigger when activate items, I don't really think there's a point buying this, let your supports do it instead. Unless you can get this item so quickly, then that would be a very strong pickup for the whole team.

Getting focused by magic early on? Rushing up this item doesn't benefit you that much besides the magic immunity that it gives you, but if you need it early? Go get it.

A rarely picked up item, but in my opinion it's quite underrated. Gives you Intelligence (yes, Intelligence), a nice amount of HP, plus a slow that has a HUGE cast range, very useful for chasing down or even running away.

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Now, here's the follow-up/situational items:

Doom and Fiend's Grip annoys you ? Or some lethal initiator like Nether Swap or Reality Rift ? Get one, it'll be suprisingly effective.

I don't really like getting this on Outworld Devourer at all, since the silence/amplify damage can be broken by using magic immunity or the Manta Style, plus the stats it gives isn't that great, really.

6.82 !!!!!! It's now considerable for an Aghanim's Scepter for OD himself since the mana drain will always be triggered. Quite a good buff for such an ignored Aghs hero. Though, don't build this rushed, you should get enough damange/utility before thinking of have one.

The ultimate disabler, plus all those stats and intelligence just add up so nicely to Outworld Devourer. Personally I'll get this as my next item after the core one.

Adding slow to your arsenal (both active ability - a nice followup after Sanity's Eclipse, and the aura that slows attack speed of opponent), some armor for tankiness, and again, MOAR INTELLIGENCE!

It just crossed my mind, this item at some points can be effective. But not likely to be used in most situation. The stats that it gives though, pretty nice.

Greedy farming item, get it quick in order to extend your dominating gap and get items even faster. Not recommended in every situation though, consider it carefully.

Funky item for initiation, but I doubt anyone will get this unless you're snowballing hard and want some suprising factor to your opponent. The fact that it doesn't give anything beside a blink and takes 1 slot in your inventory, Blink Dagger is not advisable on Outworld Devourer.

Ultra late-game situation? One teamfight can change the entire game? If you win it, and have money to spare, buy one and push to victory quickly. As Outworld Devourer is not good at anti-pushing, though, it's also not quite recommended to build this.

Double Sanity's Eclipse anyone? The cooldown of the item itself is quite similar to the ultimate, make it very useful and devastating, especially in late game. Getting Ultra Kill or Rampage with this combination is no big deal, if you can execute it properly.

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And please, DON'T GET THESE:

Bloodstone: A waste of money, since you already have Essence Aura. Turn on your Arcane Orb and spam it, enjoy full mana, lads!

Diffusal Blade/ Desolator/ Eye of Skadi: No orb effect, that's all. Unless you're trolling quite hard.

Dagon: Same thing, never get this. You don't need this kind of item for killing people, really.

Battle Fury: Yep.

Hero Changelog

6.82

Essence Aura:
[*] Chance to activate increased from 10/20/30/40% to 40%
[*] Percentage of mana restored reduced from 25% to 10/15/20/25%
Aghanim's Scepter Sanity's Eclipse now always triggers the mana drain

6.80

Astral Imprisonment cast range reduced from 550 to 500.

6.79

Base damage reduced by 3.
Items no longer trigger Essence Aura.

6.78

Movement speed increased from 310 to 315.

6.76

Movement speed increased from 300 to 310.

6.75

Astral Imprisonment intelligence steal increased from 2/4/6/8 to 4/6/8/10.

6.73

Sanity's Eclipse now hits units imprisoned by Astral Imprisonment.

6.72

Intelligence growth increased from 2.8 to 3.3.

Final Words

There you go, that's all I have to say.
Feel free to comment and point out any mistakes that I make, or share your opinion on how to play this hero, I really appreciate it.
ALWAYS REMEMBER, MOAR INTELLIGENCE (shoutout to Eddie in this forum for his amazing guide on Outworld Devourer, look for it, it's really nice).
See ya around, and kick some ***es with the lordly masterful race of intelligence :D

Guide Changelog

• May 27th 2014: Reformatted the item section