Such a beautiful death. I envy you. (6.82)

Introduction

(Credit to kunkka)

Let me adress to you the following words: Welcome to my very first guide. This guide to Death Prophet is meant to help mainly newer players, however I think it should be proving useful for intermediate players just as well. I hope you'll like it.

Bio:
Krobelus was a Death Prophet - which is one way of saying she told fortunes for the wealthiest of those who wished to look beyond the veil. But after years of inquiring on behalf of others, she began to seek clues on her own fate. When death refused to yield its secrets, she tried to buy them with her life. But the ultimate price proved insufficient. Death disgorged her again and again, always holding back its deepest mysteries. Her jealousy grew. Others could die for eternity - why not she? Why must she alone be cast back on the shores of life with such tiresome regularity? Why was she not worthy of the one thing all other living creatures took for granted? Still, she would not be discouraged. Each time she returned from the grave, she brought a bit of death back with her. Wraiths followed her like fragments of her shattered soul; her blood grew thin and ectoplasmic; the feasting creatures of twilight took her for their kin. She gave a little of her life with every demise, and it began to seem as if her end was in sight. With her dedication to death redoubled, and no client other than herself, Krobelus threw herself ever more fervently into death's abyss, intent on fulfilling the one prophecy that eluded her: That someday the Death Prophet would return from death no more.

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Death Prophet is a slightly pseudo-esque hero combining a few very powerful traits that synergize interestingly well and aren't too hard to play. She can nuke properly, and with low cooldowns and manacosts this makes her a neat harasser, able to farm quite easily.

Combined with a very solid and, as the late game approaches, almost ridiculous movement-speed this not only let's Death Prophet get in and out of battle with ease, but also makes her a decent hard-lane hero.

The vast majority of her damage output has nothing to do with her auto-attack. It's her ultimate. Everything this hero is: nuker, tank, ganker, pusher stands and falls with her ultimate. But more of that later.
Her natural tankiness however, is probably Death Prophet's sweetest trait, though quite unusual for an intelligence-hero. And, in fact, it really helps her almost as much as her ultimate.

On the downside, she lacks any stuns and/or slows, not actually making her an initiator. But, due to her powerful and long AOE-Silence, along with her tankiness and speed, she can withstand the impact of damage that falls upon any initiator, and allow Death Prophet to join the battle more-or-less alongside the initiator.

She is however, most definetely a nuker, transmuting into a tank as the game goes on.
Nevertheless I've also added a supportive build, as sometimes it might come in handy.

Pros / Cons

Pros

+ Easy farming
+ Good in every stage of the game
+ Amazing movement speed
+ Annoying harrassing
+ Flexible in builds and laning
+ Ranged
+ Massive team-fight presence
+ One of the best tower-pushing heroes in the game
+ Sweet tankiness
+ Easy escapes that annoy your opponent
+ Solid in 1on1 battles as well
+ Again, you are SCHNETZELING through towers
+ Easy to play/ good beginner hero


Cons

- Lacks any stuns or slows
- Low agility gain, thus low armor and attackspeed
- Bad attack animation
- Horrible auto-attack DPS
- Item-dependent in late game
- Long casting animations
- Rather limited skill cap
- You'll have to finish the game faster than you want to
- Although flexible, sometimes hard to position on a proper lane
- Farm-dependent

Skills

"Death calls your name."


I'll just be introducing this via the DotaCinema-Introduction to Death Prophet: Play Video Crypt Swarm

Type: Targets: Damage:

Active Enemies Magical

Sends a swarm of winged beasts to savage enemy units in front of Death Prophet.

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Cast Range: 600
Damage: 100/175/250/300
Cooldown: 8
Manacost: 105/120/140/165

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How to use it:
Crypt Swarm is kind of your everyday AOE-nuke simply dealing damage in front of you. And as such very capable at farming and lane-pushing. However there are a few things to note, ecspecially for less experienced players:
1. The damage from crypt swarm acquires a higher AOE the further it travels, meaning it deals damage in a cone. It starts off with a radius of only 100, but at the range of 700 it reaches it's maximal horizontal dimensions of 300 units. (picture will follow)
2. While the cast range may be 600, the actual damage cone travels up to 1100 units away from Krobelus, meaning that sometimes you'll have to cast it behind the enemy hero to hit him if he's more than 600 units away.

Crypt Swarm has low mana costs and a very low cooldown, basically allowing you to spam it really hard from the early game on. The good range allows you to harass and farm very easily without endangering yourself too much about receiving damage or being killed. It is, as all of her spells, affected by Witchcraft and in the case of Crypt Swarm it lowers its mana cost and cooldown, further enhancing its spamability.


Silence

Type: Targets:

Active Enemies

Prevents enemy units in a target area from casting spells.

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Cast Range: 900
Cooldown: 15
Manacost: 80
Duration: 3/4/5/6

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How to use it:
Silence is a somewhat hard to hit, yet very effective silencing tool. When casting it, you should always try to anticipate your opponent's movements due to DP's long casting animation and the rather limited radius.
Also, take in consideration that you want to silence as many opponents as possible, so look out for good opportunities and don't let chances with heroes like Dark Seer or Magnus, who can effectively crowd, go to waste (Pretty much applies to any AOE-spells, on that note). Always get one level of it early on, as the AOE stays the same. The only thing effectively changing is the duration of the silence, which is good, but her other skills are mostly preferable. However, always stay flexible on your skill- and item-build.

If there are heroes on the enemy team who need to be shut-down for a long time in a team-fight, to prevent gamebreaking skills ( e.g. Tidehunter's Ravage), have to get a nuker down before he can utilize his spells (e.g. Lina, Lion, Lich) or need time to prevent an escape (e.g. Weaver, Riki) it can be wise to be skilling it early, even to the point of maxing it out first.

Also note that Silence is a purgeable debuff, so skilled opponents will try to get their allies rid of it, by the means of Diffusal Blade, Fortune's End, Dispel Magic or Satyr Trickster's Purge (only Doom Bringer and Chen).


Witchcraft

Type: Targets:

Passive Self

Increases the potency of Death Prophet's spells, while providing a passive movement speed boost. Reduces mana costs and cooldowns of Crypt Swarm and Silence, and adds additional spirits to Exorcism.

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Bonus Movement Speed: 5%/10%/15%/20%
Mana Cost Decrease on Crypt Swarm and Silence: 10/15/20/25
Cooldown Decrease on Crypt Swarm and Silence: 1/2/3/4
Bonus Exorcism Spirits: 3/4/5/6

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How to use it:
Well, as it's a passive spell, there isn't that much using about it. Still I'd like to tell you a few things, as why this skill is unique and amazing.
Witchcraft's main purpose is to increase the effectiveness of all your other spells. By decreasing the cooldown, as well as the manacost of Crypt Swarm and Silence it allows you to spam both more thoroughly and constantly. This enhances your annoyingness to extremes, may it be side- ord midlane and prevents you from mana problems. Furthermore it improves your ultimate, giving it more damage, thus more DPS, more heal, more presence...you get where I'm coming from.

However, the possibly best part of this spell is the bonus movement speed. Whilst Death Prophet's base movement speed is rather abyssmal, by the boost of 20% on her entire ms, she gets hilariously fast.
To put this to numbers: With Arcane Boots she ends up with 408 movement speed, with Phase Boots at 402 (boosted 467) and with Boots of Travel even 456 constant movement speed and thus only 56 below max speed.
This fact allows you to swoop in and out of battles, and as long as you manage to avoid being brutally disabled for a very long time you'll almost always manage to get out of a fight without dying, due to your high durability and bulk. And upon chasing down, you'll almost never miss a slow, you're simply faster than almost any hero. (Exceptions to this will show up in the chapter "Friends and Foes")

Exorcism

Type: Targets: Damage:

Active No Target Physical

Unleashes evil spirits to drain the life of nearby enemy units and structures. At the end of the spell's duration, Death Prophet is healed in proportion to the damage dealt.

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Spirit-Damage: 43-48
Radius: 700
Cooldown: 100
Manacost: 200/300/400
Duration: 30

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How to use it:
As mentioned earlier, this is your most important spell. It describes your entire playstyle and it's what makes your hero somewhat easy to play.
It is remarkable just how much damage these ghosts deal over time, and how they can tear apart entire teams, without you having to do much of anything. Ecspecially from Level 2 onwards, it works wonders in teamfights and should always be used.
However, there are a few important notes to be made on how the spirits work, to maximize their powers.

First things first: The spirits deal physical damage. Thus, their damage is reduced by armor, however, it can also be increased by lowering said armor. Also, it wents straight through Black King Bar. This has lead people to buy armor-decrasing items for Death Prophet such as Stygian Desolator. However, I won't do that in this guide, for reasons I'll explain in the section Items.

The given radius of this spell describes the radius in which the spirits will search for new targets, which is always in a radius of 700 around Death Prophet. The enemies have to be visible to get targetted, however, spirits that already picked a target can also hit enemies within the fog of war (they dont grant vision).
You can also slightly control whom your spirits will target, as they'll automatically pick the target you chose last for attacking when considering a new target, and if it is within 700 range.

The spirits have, in general sort of their own will. They'll keep attacking, even if you are stunned, slowed, sleeping, or jerking off to your awesomeness. Thus you should activate it before your opponents get the chance to disable you. However, if you die, Exorcism will definetely and absolutely end.

Next is, what makes you (besides str-gain) an awesome tank, if your positioning is good enough. And that is the "lifesteal" that your spirits posess. At the end of Exorcism's duration, the spirits will return to you, and grant you 25% of the health they have taken from enemies. This will almost always heal you up to 100%. If the timing's right, you can use this to bait, to tank, to escape or to lenghten a teamfight.
Also may be noted, that while your opponent's must be visible to be targetted. you don't have to be for them. hiding behind treelines or smiliar can easily let you kill your opponen't while they chase and while you can fully concentrate on avoiding possible damage.

The arguably best part of this spell however is, that it damages towers. And not like Pugna or Leshrac always a little bit disappointing and decent in the best case, but rather like a pidgeon getting ripped apart by a plane-propeller. Ecspecially on level 3, using your ultimate once tears down a tower in about 15-20 seconds. It's simply amazing.

Its cooldown may be rather high, but din't end up regretting not to have used it. When a teamfight appears to commence, always cast it. Rather wasted, than dying through waiting.

Exorcism can also be used to deny your own creeps and towers, enabling some security when denying, while keeping your range from the pushing heroes.

On a side-note, spirits are destroyed if they are further than 2000 units away from the target, so hunting down until the fountain isn't possible. That's only fair considering their damage I'd say though.

Laning and Skill Builds

"What I've seen goes far beyond death."

As already mentioned very early in this guide, DP is relatively flexible about the lane she can be played on. This section will also contain some early game-items, which I won't explain later on. You can kind of skip this if you know how laning works, however it holds some details, and how to tackle the hard lane with DP.
The standard way of playing her would be on the mid-lane.

The General Skill Build

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In the early-game, you are a nuker. Thus, I'd usually recommend maxing Crypt Swarm by level 7. However, the last point in Crypt Swarm costs significantly more Mana, at a smaller damage increase, so, ecspecially when going for Phase Boots it's also recommendable to get points in Witchcraft rather than the 4th level of Swarm.
1 point for Silence at an early stage (levle 4 usually) is also important as explained in the section "Skills"

Skill your Ultimate as early as possible, because although it's at it#s weakest in early game, it can still easily turn the tides on battles and ecspecially in ganking.
I can't quite think of a scenario in which it would be wise to skill Attributes rather than one of your skills, so just let it be.


Laning

Mid-Lane

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Playing Death Prophet on the mid-lane is rather easy. You'll start off with the classical 2 gg-branches ( Iron Branches) for minor stats and further items and get yourself a Tango so you won't drop dead from earliest harrassment.

This would leave you with 407 gold. However, experience shows that pubbies suck. And that pubby-supporters often suck even worse. So, maybe you'll have to resort to buying yourself observer wards. This can have 3 reasons:
1. You have 4 carries on your team, yay.
2. Your supporter buys wards, but won't ward a runing spot.
3. Your supporter is a complete and utter imbecile.
Obsis however are crucial for your early-game. You need them ecspecially for warding your rune spot, and avoiding possible ganks from the side-lanes.

Yet since the startig-stock of Observer Wards got reduced to 1, only ward 1 rune spot (from which you think ganks are more likely). That way you'll see one rune spot, so if it won't appear there, it will appear on the other side.

You do this, because you should use the second ward, to ward either the safe lane or the hard lane (depends) from ganks. Yes, even if they are morons. We are good players, and nice on top of that. We can't have our team feeding.
(For Observer Wards placement look into gso's amazing Guide to Warding.)

If this obstacle is gone, you'll either need a measly 4 lasthits, or 6-7 lasthits to get your bottle before the minute 2 rune appears.
(If you don't know how or why to use the bottle, here is a brillant guide by good ol' Purge on the basics:) Click me hard and deep, because you have a lot to learn, my love.

From this point on, you have 3 tasks:
1. Farming:
Farming, even in Early Game is quite easy with Death Prophet. Your Crypt Swarm is a very useful farming tool early on, and quite easy to use on top of that. However, your early damage as well as your slow attack animation and mediocre projectile speed make it rather hard to lasthit by auto-attacks. You'll probably get out-lasthitted like that, and it's rather easy to deny your farm. That is where your second task comes to terms.

2. Harrass the ever-loving **** out of your opponent:
When last-hitting with Crypt Swarm always make sure to hit your opposing hero with it as well. It'll make it really hard for him to lasthit/ deny, and gives you lots of space for farming. However, there are heroes who can put up with you, or even deny you on that purpose, see: "Friends and Foes"

3. Ganking:
Probably your most important task in mid, unless your opponent's hard carry runs in the mid-lane. From Level 6 onwards (sometimes even earlier if you get your hands on Invisibilty-/ DD-/ or Haste-Rune and/ or a good opportunity) you'll start ganking the lanes, preferably disturbing/ killing the hard-carry. This works wuite well with Death Prophet, however, it gets a lot easier if the lane you gank has the CCs/ stuns that you lack. Wait for an opportunity, and initiate. Silence and Swarm with the right timing, and kill everything. If your fast, you can even try to take out the first tower in the process.


Dual-Lane

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Decide if you want to go for a) the tank-build or b) the support-build. However, I'd only really recommend the support-build for tri-lanes. Otherwise you waste lots of potential.
Dual-Lanes are pretty much as you're used to. Iron Branches, Tango and Healing Salve. Depending on if you're going for a simple bit of mana and damage ( Mantle of Intelligence), expect lots of ganking and team-fighting and want to support yourself and others quite nicely and want to go for Urn of Shadows, boosting your hp and mana-regen ( Gauntlets of Strength, Sage's Mask) or want to go directly for Arcanas ( Arcane Boots) you'll get items accordingly. Make sure you don't get ganked.

Tri-Lane

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Tri-Lanes are rather similar, with 1 big difference: You are down here to support. Now, DP isn't exactly a full supporter, but she can synergize really well on a Tri-Lane, where your job, in fact, is to deliver support, or in your case, deliver massive harassment.
When you go for full-support (still, shouldn't do that, semi-support usually works a lot better) get Animal Courier, Flying Courier and Wards throughout the Early Game. If you have a full-supporter with you, well, don't.

Now stack and pull creeps, harrass the opponent and let your hard carry farm. Don't use Crypt Swarm to lasthit. You can however use it, to lower the creep's hp to make them easier to be last-hitted. Don't worry, you'll catch up soon enough. Unlike on the other lanes, on the tri-lane you should definetely get Arcane Boots as you'll support 3 heroes at once with them and keep your own mana up for harrassing. (Again, exceptions)

Solo Hard-Lane

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I won't give you a guide on how to hard-lane in general. However, there are a few things considering the skill build and items, that are definetely worth the mentioning.
Everything in this section derives from personal experience.
While Windrunner or Dark Seer possess amazing escape-abilities, you definetely lacked one, if it wasn't for Witchcraft.

First off, make sure your lane is warded from ganks. Second, be cautious.
Basic items stay the same, however try to get your Arcane Boots/ Phase Boots as fast as possible.
When going for Arcane Boots, sometimes you'll experience that being harrassed makes it rather hard to farm properly. In that case, go for a Ring of Health first, otherwise, stick with the Arcanas. When going for Phase Boots, you'll probably experience a severe lack of mana. If you don't get harrassed, you can help this with clarity potions, if you are, go for Void Stone after your boots, or even directly head for a Soul Ring.

Either way, when hard-laning, I'd always go for Bloodstone, alomst no exceptions.
Now for the skills, maxing Witchcraft rather than Crypt Swarm usually is my first measurement. Bring Crypt Swarm to level 3, as usual but then go ahead, and skip your Exorcism as well as your level 4, to max Witchcraft. This will give you a very high movement speed to escape and low mana costs for farming.
Skipping Lvl4 and Exorcism isn't as bad as it sounds, as your level 1 ultimate doesn't really do that much damage, and on a solo lane where you won't go ganking it serves little purpose, and Crypt Swarms final level gives only 50 more damage, while costing a lot more, making it rather an obstacle than helpful on the hard lane.

With the enormous ms and the good nuke damage, you should usually do a really good job on the hard lane, while gaining level surperiority.
However it is to note that this doesn't always work. There are Tri-Lanes that can easily dive you behind your tower and heroes with massive early disables. Simply don't go with soloing the hard-lane in those cases.


Runes


When running on a bottle, keep in mind that, at least in the early game, almost every rune is your rune, unless it may be for example a regeneration rune for somebody who's really in need.

Double Damage

During the ganking phase, DD can deliver the crucial amount of damage to make your gank succesful. Take it. From the mid-game on however, this is no longer your rune. Keep it for others unless you urgently need the bottle loads. And even then, it's a situational pick-up.

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Illusion

Another early pick-up. However from the mid-game onwards, usually don't take it when there's someone else around. You just don't benefit much from it. You can still use them to ward and scout if the situation is right.

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Haste

Again. Early this rune is AMAZING for you, definetely take it! But later you are fast enough yourself, in fact, not far from the max speed. You should usually save it for someone else, with whom you'll then be able to take down an isolated enemy out of nothing.

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Regeneration

Always situational. If you need it more than anyone else, take it.

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Invisibility

Your rune. Absolutely your rune in any stage of the game. Pick it up!

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Items

"I know just how I'll put this to use."

Go for it!!
Good, if you have the money!
Situational
Very Situational
F**k this s**t

Feel free to click some of the item's names to hear the amazing prophet, melting over her beautiful items.


Beautiful, beautiful Bloodstone!
Unless you run really, really low on money, and need to switch to an emergency-build (recommending the support-build here) this is your core on any build for Death Prophet.

It simply gives you everything you need. Massive health, Massive Mana, good HP-regen, good Mana-Regen. If you keep yourself in good position you should very rarely die, filling your bloodstone in the process, and if you do, you'll come back almost, if not completely instantly. Neat.

But wait, there's more! Upon dying, you'll be healing your allies around you, yet keeping a vision on the position where you died as well as gaining experience.

One of the newest patches also gave you a very interesting opportunity. Insta-Suicide! Usable in every dire situation, denying experience and gold to your opponents! Oh God yes! You'll feel satisfied with the sweet embrace of death, just like Death Prophet would.

Take it or leave it. Your call. But honestly, take this beautiful gem.

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Arcane Boots
May it be on mid- or sidelane, Arcane Boots simply rock on Death Prophet. Ecspecially in early game you'll fell the crypt swarm nagging on your mana. However, as soon as you have the Arcane Boots at hand, you'll rarely feel mana-hungry again. (Beware, spamming still kind of eats up your mana pool, you are not Outworld Devourer (Oh, but he's a nice ally!))

On side lanes and after a successfull gank it also grants you the opportunity to still your mana-greedy laning-partner's hunger, which is why, playing on Dual- and Tri-Lanes I'd always go for it.

Also, you can build disassemble the Energy Booster into your Bloodstone and start going for Boots of Travel for the later game.

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Phase Boots
There's actually only one good reason to go for Phase Boots and that is its active speed boost. However, this is only necessary if you don't want to go for BoT or you are playing on the hard-lane, in the need of better escape options.

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Boots of Travel
Death Prophet is one of the few heroes on which Boots of Travel are commonly built. And for good reason! In fact, for 3 good reasons.

1. The Movement Speed is amaaaaaazing. You'll be flying over the map! You'll swoop in and out of battles rampaging and seeing everything around you dying as you wish for it yourself, but never being grnated that wish, as you're just too fast!

2. Actually flying over the map. Teleporting to any allied unit is great. And it's even greater for a pushing hero like Death Prophet. Port onto a pushed lane, push it in, wait for the cd, repeat.

3. Escaping. Get some distance between you and your followers, or wait for them to run out of disables, find a good hiding spot and teleport back to base. Practice makes perfect. Also works wonders against Bloodseeker

Great item for Death Prophet in all respects.

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Heart of Tarrasque
The classic massive tank item. For Death Prophet just as well. Insane amounts of HP, Great HP-Regen, and switch out of the battle for 30 seconds and come back regenerated. Don't give a flying f**k about going back to base to heal. Works wonders. Major problem however is the lack of armor-gain DP urgently needs. That being said it works wonders as lategae-extension or against an annoying team full of casters and nukes. Neat item, but expensive.

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Shiva's Guard
Already now we almost enter the realm of luxury. If you farmed well you can have BoT, Bloodstone and Heart of Tarrasque/ Shiva's Guard by minute 35-40, but by that time the game will be most likely entering it's final stage, if it's not already won.

Shiva's Guard can be bought as an extension as alternative for HoT and I'd mainly buy it against strong auto-attackers and right-click-carries as it grants an attack-speed slowing aura alongside giving you the CC that you lack so very much.

Not to mention the awesome Intelligence-boost making your auto-attacks more effective and unlimiting you when spell-spamming and the massive armor, that Krobelus urgently needs, due to her low agility gain.

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Assault Cuirass
While being an amazing item, Assault Cuirass is somewhat situational on Death Prophet. You don't profit too much from the attack speed-bonus yourself and mostly there are other heroes on your team on which AC works a lot better. However if there isn't, it's an awesome item for a few reasons:
1. The armor (as mentioned you NEED that)
2. The auras, heavily aiding your team, ecspecially your carries
3. The armor-lowering aura making your ultimate even more devestating.

I tend to get this if there's no one else on the team to get it and/ or if my team consists of too many auto-attack-carries.

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Scythe of Vyse

Guinsoo's! The Sheepstick! Whatever the name, brillant item for almost any intelligence hero, and so it is for Death Prophet!
The Hex is one of the best disables in the game, again, disables are something really wonderful and needed for DP.
The intelligence-burst! is amazing and it enhances all of your other stats as well, granting a bit of tankiness.
I'll usually get this if my team needs more disables or if there's a really dangerous carry on the enemy team thta no one else can lock down.

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As already mentioned, Death Prophet Flexibility gives here a wide range of opportunities considering her items. I'll present a few of the important ones to you:



Black King Bar
Well, what is there to say. It's more or less a possibility on just about any hero, Death Prophet is no exception. Nice strength, enhances your low damage. Great spell immunity.
Get it if you're getting disabled and focused a lot. The fact that your gae impact in form of the ghosts remains even when stunned makesthis a secondary choice and mostly inferior to siply going for more HP.

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Linken's Sphere
An alternative to BKB and even to Bloodstone. It's one of my favorite items in the game, and works really well on Krobelus. It boosts all of your stats decently, it grants you strong HP- and Mana-Regen and the great Spell Block. What more could you want? Get it in fear of disables, if you want something more useful statswise than BKB (though a little less usefull in spell blocking and more expensive) or for fun-games.

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Pipe of Insight
Granting HP-Regen and heavy magic immunity!
A really strong item, ecspecially against AOE-spells, for a very decent price. If you bought a Headress early on and sb. else already got a Mekansm or there are many casters on the opponent's team, go for it!

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Refresher Orb
Many ups and downs to this. The Ultimates don't stack (as I thought when trying this for the first time, that's why I'm telling it.) It only starts to get really useful by the endgame, due to the fact that it eats just too much mana to be casted twice in a row (with Exorcism on Lv 3 it costs 1150 mana to perform this trick). However it has to be noted that if it can be used, you can push in 2 towers in a row, or the base tower alongside both raxes in below a minute by yourself. Also, the stats are quite decent, and it's barely possible to waste your ultimate anymore.

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Mekansm
If you go for a supporter, this is the most basic item. It gives you sweet stats and needed armor alongside the heal. Cool stuff!
Get it if you don't have a supporter (I'm sorry for you).

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Eul's Scepter of Divinity
if you want to have some good laughs in a game, go for Eul's! It synergizes really well with the fact that your spirits keep rampaging no matter what you do.

Isolate 1 or 2 enemy heroes, activate your ulti, start fighting. As it gets close, swirl into the air. When you come down they either ran or they are practically dead, while giving you short recovery time. Those 2,5 secs are way more than one would expect.

Another method of utilizing is a safer approach towards towers, mainly in a sieging situation.

Also, it grants you whooping 35 ms! If you don't want to go for BoT, take'em!

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Heaven's Halberd
Rather unusual, but it works! And in more than one way. Sometimes, this is just the best item to go for! When going against strong right-click carries, Heaven's Halberd alongside Shiva's Guard is amazing! Str-gain and really nice evasion increase your tankiness, disarming will render right-clickers useless for a while. Also you get a chance to slow with your right-clicks! Cool!

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Ghost Scepter
Can work, doesn't have to. Another item to go for against rightclickers when there are no massive magical damage impacts around. Something to go for in the Shiva/ Halberd build, there it works wonders and acts like a better Eul's, rocking hard.
If you're swimming in gold, you could even go for an Ethereal Blade, giving you armor and making an enemy insanely vulnerable to your spells. However this is more than situational, that's only fun, it's too expensive otherwise.

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Drum of Endurance
Probably the item with the best cost-benefit ratio in the game. Granting you stats and a sweet movementspeed-aura. However, there are mostly better items to go for, and most of the time, somebody will already have built one.

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Eye of Skadi
Also, mostly a fun item. But it's a LOT of fun. Your auto-attakcs now grant massive CC! You gain superb stats, HP and Mana! It's really good! But I'd rather go for Shiva's. Still, worth the shot!

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Blade Mail
Sometimes, you'll feel focused. Too much. Like, even for a tank too much. Then you go for Blade Mail. Damage repel rocks, and if they still think they want to attack you, let them get ripped apart on your steel-hard tutu.

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Shadow Blade
It may be a stereotype, but honestly. Lothar's Edge is like THE fun item. Here as well. You don't profit much from the auto-attack boost. However the speed boost can come in really handy just as well as the invisibility, mostly in pubbies, where not everybody runs around with sentries, and dust, and gems, and necronomicions. However, in pubby it still mostly works for a devestating initiat eon your part. Oh and on that note, DP's auto-attacks aren't even THAT bad. They are rather just not good enough to go for items focused on enhancing it.

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Rod of Atos
With 25 intelligence and 325 HP nice boosts for DP! Also, it's not too expensive and gives you access to a CC with a riddiculous range! A nice ganking item in the early-mid game. Would mostly go for other items, but if you find the lanes really easy to gank, go for it.

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Orchid Malevolence
Let me describe my feelins towards this in one sound: "Meh".
It makes your DPS from auto-attacks somewhat okay, gives you some intelligence, Mana Regen and the sweet active silence.
However, you already got a silence at your hands that's even longer.
It's not good, it's not bad, it's just meh.

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Stygian Desolator
Have seen many people using this recently. It works quite well in pubby, makes your auto-attacks pretty strong and decreases multiple armors for some secs if you split your attacks right. In pubby it works, and it doesn't work too shabby. But it#s just too much money for something with only one purpose, and that is to lower armor. However it works on buildigs and Roshan, so for the pushing-build, it can prove a solid extension.

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Consider almost everything else orange or red.

Friends and Foes

"You merely sipped of life, now drink deep of death!"


As Death Prophet is a rather balanced hero with little exploitable weaknesses but also little extreme traits, it's kind of hard to counter her, but there's also not too much synergizing. However this makes her also usable in various lane-ups.
But, there are a few ones on both sides that can aid her, and threaten her.
I'll spend more time with foes than counters and friends, as we can lane up with many things and threaten almost any hero.

Foes:

Slark
We really can't do too much against Slark. He can Purge our debuffs ( Dark Pact), he can jump and lock us in place for a really long time with Pounce, he can auto-attack while being in his Shadow Dance, not getting hit by our ultimate. He steals our attributes. And even if we get to damage him, he can escape faster and better than we can chase him and we cant even disable him. He's really annoying.

Necrophos
He stops our HP-Regen by Heartstopper Aura and tears down our tankiness. From early to the late game he hinders us in everything we do. He heals the entire team frequently from our ulti-damage. He's just as tanky in the late-game as we are. His ulti can stun us and tear us down at rather high hp without the chance to regen through our spirits. We dooon't really like playing against him.

Lina
Ecspecially in Early Game, a massive threat. Before we have enough HP she can nuke us down in instants. Also she is fast, she can stun us, and nuke exactly as annoying as we do. Ecspecially when laning against her mid, she's really bad.





This Hero stands for the massive Early-Game-Nukers who can hinder our farm, kill us in seconds and disable us like crazy. Late they are our tiger food, early on we are their baby cub. When fighting Rubick, keep in mind to cast Crypt Swarm or Silence directly after your ultimate, so he won't be able to steal it from you.


Lifestealer
His Rage makes him immune against our Crypt Swarm, other than that, our silence doesn't hurt him much. He's durable enough to endure our ulti whilst feasting insanely hard on our hp, regenerating all that he's losing. If we can get him from afar, and stop him from attacking, he's prey, but other than that, deadly. Good Heaven's Halberd-target.

Bloodseeker
A very long silence and strong DPS combined with an ultimate through which we'll have to stay still. Personally, I hate to play against this hero, and when playing Death Prophet even more so. Earlygame, keep your scrolls with you, during the lategame, use your BoT to escape. (Applies to both the old and the new version)


Traxex
A rather even match. With the right items we can lock her down, however, we won't escape from her, and her damage is really quite brutal. If she runs on a Desolator or Daedalus we'll have a problem. Also, if she manages to silence us early, we are probably dead.
Good Heaven's Halberd-target.
Also, this wh*re takes DP's silence-icon.




She also stands for everything that can slow us for a long period of time, destroying our advantage through high mobility.


Batrider
Barely any Counter-Section where you can't see him. We can get him down, no problem, sure. But he can drag us into an enemy team, slow us to the extremes, get away from us and amplify the damage we take. Nasty.

Abaddon
He can heavily abuse our unstoppable ultimate to heal himself up, he can shield himself and allies while damaging us and his auto-attacks slow us down. Dislike.


Weaver
Faster than us, tears down our low armor, attacks out of nothing, can invi himself out from our ulti, and jump back in time, as if he never received damage. Grah.

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We Counter:
There are many heroes that aren't really capable of doing us much harm. We penetrate through BKB-users' defenses, we pack solid damage to tear down casters, we are durable enough to usually even take semi-carries head-on. However, Death Prophet focuses on teamfights and her massive AOE-presence making her rather a global threat than less a thret for certain heroes. But I want to point out 2 prime examples of heroes that don't stand a chance:

Visage
Poor little Gargoyles ( Summon Familiars). He only has to spawn them, and they drop from the heavens like nothing by the means of our Ultimate. We can silence him, and nuke him often enough with Exorcism to tear down his cloak. He hates us more than almost any other hero.(Except for maybe Bristleback or Sniper)


Crystal Maiden
She can pose a threat in the early game with her slow and massive damage, but other than that, she's food. She can't sop us from casting, we can hunt her down no matter the slow, we can silence her and tear down her low HP in seconds. Bad.

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Friends:
Anything that can crowd the enemy such as Dark Seer or Magnus work well, as it gives us opportunity to cast more effectively and silence more opponents.
We synergize really well with strong AOE-presence and good initators as well as heroes that replenish our mana easily (like Crystal Maiden and Outworld devourer, through which you won't need many items that focus on increasing/ regenerating your mana). Again, I'll only put out four examples:


Tusk
He can initiate perfectly alongside with us through Snowball, he slows for us with Frozen Sigil and stuns for us. He can crowd our enemies with Ice Shards and deals impressive damage. Overall, he deals with every minor weakness we have. Really nice mate.


Undying
Sweet merciful god, a superb ally. He saps away our foes' strength via Decay and he can heal us ( Soul Rip). But now comes the good part. His Tombstone works like an extension of our ultimate, slowing and dealing surprising amounts of damage. And his Flesh Golem makes it perfect. It slows, and what's more, it massively amplifies damage. If he weren't so disgusting, DP should kiss him. Also he can take a few punches.


Dazzle
What makes him a surperior teammate is his ultimate. Massively lowering, if cast right, the entire opponen't team's armor while increasing your tankiness almost secures you a win in a teamfight. Dazzle's brutal CC and his heal make up for good additions and his shallow grave can give you just enough time for your ulti to run out and heal you completely. It's really lovely.
(Lowering the armor works really well with heroes that run on Desolator and/ or heroes like Slardar


Faceless Void
Again, the main reason that he's awesome with you is his ultimate. And it's really easy. Your spirits are unaffected by Void's Chronosphere and will wreck havoc against the immoblie targets inside the vault, making them easy to be devoured by Void's massive right-click damage. During that time you'll be able to nuke 1-2 Crypt Swarms into it for further damage. Even if you or your Void are bad enough that you yourself are getting locked inside his ultimate, the spirits still do their job.

Summary

After all, you can say that Death Prophet, who recently got more and more popular, not only synergizes well with many teams but proves hard to counter and fits very well in the current, push-orientated, fast meta. Her lack of real weaknesses make her a solid first pick, and in pubby she can be played at almost any time and in many lane-ups just as well.
However, her lack of reliable disables and farm-dependance can make it hard sometimes to find her a proper lane or spot on your team.


Also, I'd like to thank you for reading, it was quite some work. However, this guide is still under construction (You know, my first guide and stuff). In the future, I'd like to add a few gameplay-videos, replays and such. I'm very open for criticism, however, i'd really like it for this guide to be read by many people. I hope it didn't turn out too serious or wall o' texty. Again thanks, and cya. :D