Asian Girls | Dota Guide and Strategy

Table of contents

Part I - Introduction
1. Foreword
2. Hero Overview
3. Quick Overview
4. Hero Abilities

Part II – Skill and Item Build
1. Introduction to Build
2. Recommended Skill Order
3. Explanation for Skills
4. Core Items
5. Rejected Items
6. Summary of Item Build

Part III - Strategy
1. Early Game
2. Mid Game
3. Late Game

Part IV – How to Effectively use your Skills
1. Carrion Swarm
2. Silence
3. Exorcism

Part V - Miscellaneous
1. Worst Enemies
2. Good Allies
3. Replays
4. Conclusion
5. Credits
6. Changelog

1. Foreword

Now I have something to put in here. The build presented in this guide requires good skills and good teammates to pull off. As such, how horribly you do in a pub with this build will not be a reflection upon my guide; it will be a reflection upon your team’s poor skills. Every claim I make in my guide has been backed up with sufficient evidence and supporting arguments. Anyone who fails to read and tries to say something sucks when it has obviously been refuted in my arguments, will be ignored. As such, if you want to point out something you don’t like and want to type up a disagreement, read my justifications first. Chances are, I’ve already explained why I get this and that and why this and that won’t work. Now let’s move on to my guide to the necrophiliac, death prophet.

2. Hero Overview

Base movespeed is 280.
Base STR is 17 + 1.8 per level.
Base AGI is 14 + 1.4 per level.
Base INT is 20 + 3.0 per level.
Base Damage is 39-51.
Base HP is 473.
Base Mana is 260.
Base Armor is 1
Attack Range is 600.

3. Quick Overview

DP has good range along with an AOE nuke and silence which makes her a solid hero. However, as any hero, she does have her weaknesses. She’s very slow in the beginning and her attack animation is horrible. Adding to the fact that her base armor simply blows, it seems quite obvious playing aggressive with DP is suicidal against any decent opponents.

When you take a quick glance at her skills, you can come to the simple conclusion that she is a pusher. Having an AOE nuke and a tower demolishing ultimate can quickly tell you that. As such, we will be building her into the most devastating pusher in the game. Forget hero killing and ganking, you will do what you do best, which is pushing.

4. Hero Abilities

Carrion Swarm

Sends a horde of bats to damage enemies.

Level 1 – 100 damage
Level 2 – 175 damage
Level 3 – 250 damage
Level 4 – 300 damage

Mana cost: 105 / 120 / 140 / 165. 15 second cooldown at all levels.

This is what you will use to push and farm as well as harassing and killing enemy heroes. It is your basic AOE nuke.

Silence

Stops all enemies in a target area from casting spells.

Level 1 – Lasts 3 seconds.
Level 2 – Lasts 4 seconds.
Level 3 – Lasts 5 seconds.
Level 4 – Lasts 6 seconds.

90 mana cost and 15 second cooldown at all levels.

This is a very strong skill that you MUST master. It will save your allies and yourself many times and it will grab your team kills that would be impossible without this skill. This is the first and foremost skill that you must master and abuse. Having an AOE silence is a great asset to any team.

Witchcraft

Increases the potency of each of Krobelus’ spells:

Carrion Swarm - Decreases cooldown and mana cost.
Silence - Decreases cooldown.
Exorcism - Increases the number of Spirits summoned.

Witchcraft is an icing on a very awesome cake. The biggest noticeable advantage of taking witchcraft is the number of spirits increased. A very solid skill IMO. It bumps your movement speed up to average and let’s you cast spells without too much hindrance to your mana.

Level 1

Carrion Swarm: Mana cost reduced by 5 and cooldown reduced by 1 second.
Silence: Mana cost reduced to 80
Exorcism: +1 Spirit
Movespeed: Base movespeed becomes 287

Level2
Carrion Swarm: Mana cost reduced by 10 and cooldown reduced by 2 seconds.
Silence: Mana cost reduced to 70
Exorcism: +2 Spirit
Movespeed: Base movespeed becomes 294

Level 3
Carrion Swarm: Mana cost reduced by 15 and cooldown reduced by 3 seconds
Silence: Mana cost reduced to 60
Exorcism: +3 Spirit
Movespeed: Base movespeed becomes 295

Level 4
Carrion Swarm: Mana cost reduced by 20 and cooldown reduced by 4 seconds.
Silence: Mana cost reduced to 50
Exorcism: +4 Spirit
Movespeed: Base movespeed becomes 302

Conclusion:

Base movement speed: 302

Carrion Swarm will cost 145 mana and cooldown will be 11 seconds.

Silence will cost 50 mana.

Exorcism will have 20 evil spirits.

Exorcism

Unleashes evil spirits to attack your enemies.

Level 1 – Summons 5 evil spirits.
Level 2 – Summons 10 evil spirits.
Level 3 – Summons 16 evil spirits.

Mana cost: 200 / 300 / 400. 120 second cooldown at all levels.

Your ultimate pushing ability. This skill absolutely demolishes towers. Exorcism is the reason why you’re built as a super pusher and it is also the reason why you will be horribly focus fired in team battles.

1. Introduction to Build

The focus of my build is to make you a strong pusher. Nothing else. We will turn that bony, fragile DP into a meaty, durable DP in order to stay alive in the midst of a team battle with her spirits unleashing hell.

2. Recommended Skill Order

Level 1 - Silence
Level 2 - Carrion Swarm
Level 3 - Carrion Swarm
Level 4 - Stats
Level 5 - Carrion Swarm
Level 6 - Stats
Level 7 - Carrion Swarm
Level 8-9 - Witchcraft
Level 10 - Exorcism
Level 11 - Exorcism
Level 12-13 - Witchcraft
Level 14-15 - Silence
Level 16 - Exorcism
Level 17 - Silence
Level 18-25 - Stats

3. Explanation for Skills

Maxing out carrion swarm is common sense. I don’t think anyone will disagree with that. It is an AOE nuke that will help you farm and harass at the same time as well as grab you hero kills.

Silence is gotten at level 1 first because level one silence > level one carrion swarm. A well placed three second silence will deter any attempts at a weird first blood attempt. Carrion swarm at level one will grant you absolutely nothing.

Stats are gotten at level 4 and level 6 to improve your survivability. Level one exorcism is extremely weak and unwise to get. It drains your mana pool and achieves minimal effect. For that reason, you will not get witchcraft at level 4. Decreasing the mana cost of carrion swarm by 5 and cooldown by 1 second along with a decrease in mana cost of 10 for silence is complete shit early game. Also, increasing your spirits to a grand total of 6 will do nothing for you. However if you think your survivability is fine and your team is aiming for early game it’s fine to get witchcraft at 4 and 6.

You will start to get witchcraft at level 8 in order to move on to mid game. At this point, getting more stat point will delay your pushing power at level 13+. You will want to start pushing level 1 and 2 towers once your exorcism hits level 2, and improving the amount of spirits will be beneficial at this point. You will also need to bring your movement speed up to average and a decrease in mana cost and cooldown to carrion swarm and a decrease in mana cost for silence will start to have noticeable effects once mid game kicks in.

You will keep silence at level 1 until you reach level 14. Until early game, you want the silence to stop channeling spells and throw off a coordinated gank on you or your teammate. But once you start pushing, you will need the extra seconds of silence. Having three seconds of silence and six seconds of silence is a huge difference. Adding in more levels in silence also increases the AOE of silence, making it absolutely important to start leveling it before level 16 to make yourself annoying and hard to kill.

4. Core Items

Vanguard

Vanguard on DP sounds stupid and retarded on paper but it is very good when you actually try it out. It gives you a good HP boost and regen which will help you early game against harassment. The damage block let’s you tank towers while your exorcism demolishes it as well as take normal hits from your enemies. Vanguard will carry you on safely from early game to mid game. I expect people to argue mek is better than vanguard but that will be covered later in the rejected items list.

Boots of Travel

You need BOT to push. TP scrolls will not let you push, but BOT will. Being able to teleport anywhere your creeps are is crucial to any pusher. It also let’s you defend and farm by jumping lanes. The movement speed boost is superior to treads and you don’t need IAS on DP to warrant getting treads over BOT.

Heart of Tarrasque

HOT is next on your shopping list. Depending on the game, you might want to get the vitality booster first if you find yourself hard pressed to keep your money. It will give you the necessary boost to HP in order to survive ganks and pushes. In other situations, it is advisable to get the reaver component first as it is the more expensive part. HOT gives you a huge boost to HP which helps you survive focus fire. HOT along with vanguard makes you tough to kill and let’s you deal the necessary damage with your spells.

5. Other Items

Guinsoo

This item doesn’t help you survive the way HOT and aegis lets you. You already have silence to deter enemy heroes from easily killing your team and boosting your survival is much more important than getting a disable that has a 25 second cooldown. Being able to survive long enough to deal lots of damage with exorcism and carrion swarm and land silences in team battles is much more important than hexing one hero.

Many people will argue that cyclone and hex is valuable in team battles and it’s something you can’t pass up. However, you don’t need euls/guinsoo if you play smart. That is my only answer to that question. You should never put yourself in a situation where you need the cyclone to escape. If you’re with your teammates, a well placed silence is more than enough to turn the tide of the battle instead of using euls on one hero. If you’re trying to run away… well in that case you will miss having cyclone. However, like I said, you should never put yourself in a position where you need the cyclone. In my guide, I will teach you how to avoid a sticky situation and thus, not needing euls and guinsoo as much.

However, guinsoo is more than viable AFTER the core build for that much needed disable.

Black King Bar

Retarded item to get on DP. You don’t have any channeling spells nor do you do burst damage to warrant getting magic immunity. All you need to do is land a good silence and that is just as good as having avatar. Let them use cyclone or hex on you, your ghosts will still do damage. Between two silences, the window of opportunity of spells pouring down on you is 5 seconds. With your core build, I don’t think you will be easily killed in 5 seconds.

Eye of Skadi

People will argue that skadi gives you a good amount of HP and mana as well as a boost to armor and that awesome slow to let your evil spirits rape your target. But what did I say in the beginning of my guide? I said we will build DP as a pusher, not a hero killer. HOT does a better job at boosting your HP and a simple plate mail will solve your armor problem. The only thing that will be missed is the mana boost as my build doesn’t give any sort of mana boosting items at all.

Skadi is also another viable item after the core build if your team already has a good amount of disables and you need to be tankier. The orb is a good side effect that comes along with skadi.

Mekansm

Alright well let’s see why we should avoid mek. First off, mek sounds good right? An AOE heal, good armor boost, and a decent stat boost. But, the problem with mek is you will be severely lacking mana. You have carrion swarm, silence, and exorcism to juggle around in team battles. How in the hell will you be able to afford using mek? After you use exorcism and a few silences along with one or two carrion swarms, your mana will be depleted. In that case, in order to take advantage of mek, you will need some sort of mana boosting item like euls which sort of defeats the purpose. Euls will delay your HOT which is arguably the better survival item and vanguard gives a better HP boost and doesn’t cost any mana to take advantage of the item. Believe me, I used to think mek was better than vanguard but after a few tries, I found it actually hindered me more than help me when it came to team battles. I just never had enough mana and if I did have enough mana (by getting euls), I found that I got my HOT later than when I wanted it.

6. Summary of Item Build

The main purpose of my item build is to allow DP to wreak havoc in pushes and team battles. Without any survival items, she is fodder destined to feed and do zat in team battles. Her INT growth is good so you don’t need INT from items and all you need is a ROB to use carrion swarm more liberally. Also, this build is more than possible to achieve since she has an AOE nuke. As long as you don’t feed (which is more than possible if you play smart), this item build will not be a dream build but becomes a practical build.

1. Early Game

Two sets of tangos + Branches x 5 or chicken + tangos
Optional: Ring of Basilius
Vanguard
Boots
Observer wards

1. Silence
2. Carrion Swarm
3. Carrion Swarm
4. Stats
5. Carrion Swarm
6. Stats
7. Carrion Swarm
8-9. Witchcraft

The first thing I want to say is get used to DP’s attack animation. It took me a good amount of games to get used to it. Try to last hit and deny. You want to keep your creeps at your side of the tower as much as possible. Once you get level two carrion swarm, start using it to grab a few creep kills while you harass your opponent (in other words, don’t stay with full mana unless you want to engage in a battle). This will inevitably start pushing the creep equilibrium towards your opponent’s side but this is the time period where denying will take precedence in order to keep your creeps at your side. As soon as your creep’s HP drops below 50%, attack it a few times and then aim for the last hit in order to deny. It will take a lot of practice but this is crucial. DP is too fragile to get ganked early on. You also want your tower protection as much as possible in order to fall back quickly once your opponents start to combo you. If you feel that your opponents will simply out regen your nuke or your opponents have the upper hand in lane control, don’t use carrion swarm to harass. Just keep denying and grab a few creep kills while you’re at it. It will be foolish to make yourself vulnerable by pushing out. If you’re with another nuker then nuke the hell out of your opponents. In this case, it will be beneficial if one of you got ROB to continually harass with your spells.

Always remember you have silence. If you feel your opponents will try to engage a battle, quickly throw a silence and use carrion swarm to deter them.

My advice early game is to farm up as much as you can. A farmed up DP is a scary DP. You generally don’t want to move around the map to gank, you want to stay in your lane and farm. When your teammates come to gank your lane, help them out by silencing and nuking. But it is foolish to be greedy so play it safe. You generally want to get level 11 as quickly as possible because that’s when you will start pushing.

There is one crucial item you must get: observer wards. A ganked DP is a dead DP. You must grab map control ASAP in order to let yourself and your solo teammate farm. Be liberal in getting observer wards. If your opponents want to have a ward battle with you, don’t be afraid to engage in one. You must never fall behind in levels and you must never feed. That is the worse case scenario for any hero, particularly DP. You want to get level 11 as quickly as possible and you want your vanguard and boots as soon as possible. By getting ganked and dying, you’ve lost precious time farming and you’ve fed your opponents as well as losing money yourself. Getting observer wards will save you money so don’t think of it as spending, think of it as investing.

2. Mid game

BOT
Vitality booster OR Reaver first

10-11. Exorcism
12-13. Witchcraft
14-15. Silence

Hooray for mid game. If your opponent’s first tier towers aren’t down, now is the time to take them down. Ask your teammates to come along with you to grab the towers. If you think you can grab it without exorcism, don’t use exorcism. Only use it when you know you will need it. Once the first tier towers are down, your opponents will be extremely vulnerable. It is extremely important to keep buying observer wards to maintain map control. Not only that, you will need it to ward their neutrals. Any smart player will never cross the river in which case, they will start neutraling if the creeps are too far in. You must screw this up for them. It is important that you stay ahead in levels and items. Force them to decide on 1. do nothing or 2. risk getting ganked by farming past river. I will repeat this again, don’t think of it as buying, think of it as investing. Keeping your opponents down is more effective than trying to save 200 gold.

Whenever your ultimate is in cooldown, go around and farm. At this point, you should have your BOT so jump lanes to farm. If you have map control, don’t be afraid to go out a little. You will have vision of a gank the moment it starts thanks to your observer wards. If you’re having a tough game then grab the vitality booster first with one or two TP scrolls. The added HP from the vitality booster along with the TP scrolls should help you out in tough spots.

However, if you feel that your team has a better late game, then don’t push as aggressively as I said. Just ward their entire neutrals and the river and keep farming.

3. Late Game

Reaver OR Vitality Booster
Complete Heart of Tarrasque

16. Exorcism
17. Silence
18-25. Stats

Now is the time to really push. Basically, every time you use exorcism, your goal is to grab a tower or win an important team battle. Don’t frivolously use it to grab a hero kill or try stupid things like running in against two enemies with your exorcism on. It is strictly a team battle and pushing skill.

If you’ve played right, your team should be ahead in items and levels. That should be the deciding factor in team pushes. If your team has the advantage, constantly pressure your opponents by pushing in. Don’t let them catch up and don’t let them set the pace, it should be your team who sets the game’s pace.

If your team did something wrong and your opponents are stronger in levels and items, try to pick off your opponents one by one before pushing. If they’re ahead in levels and items, a 5 on 5 team battle will have a high chance of becoming disastrous for your team. Now is more important than ever to maintain map control. Buy sentry wards and destroy their own wards as to prevent them from seeing a gank coming their way.

In pushes, your role is simple: stay alive. You want to let your ghosts wreak havoc against your opponents and their base. Use carrion swarm whenever it is available and always use your silence. 6 seconds of silence can quickly decide the outcome of the battle. During those 6 seconds, your team should be focusing on heroes that depend on their skills like CM or rhasta. Those heroes are fragile with their spells, imagine how easy it will be to get rid of them if they can’t cast their spells. No frostbite for CM, no voodoo for rhasta.

1. Carrion Swarm

This is the range of carrion swarm. The distance between where the first observer ward is and DP is the maximum casting range without moving forward. It’s good to have a mental note of this range. As you can see, the range of this skill makes it easy to hit heroes with carrion swarm. You will rarely miss since the range is ungodly.

When you use carrion swarm to farm, don’t ever use it at the beginning of the creep wave. You’ll just mess things up. Always try to last hit the first creep that all your creeps are focusing. Then hit the ranged creep once and focus on a creep that your creeps aren’t hitting. This should grab you at least three creep kills.

2. Silence

This is the maximum casting range for silence. You can tell right away that the range is imba. The AOE of this silence is level 4. The AOE increases each time you level up silence. Always try to position your silence to hit as many opponents as possible. You should never miss hitting silence since there is no casting time and the AOE is huge.

In team battles, this skill should always be in cooldown. It creates a huge advantage for your team so take advantage of it. Use it to stop channeling spells and use it to stop windwalkers and blinkers from escaping your teammates. Always aim this skill at a disabler or a nuker if your opponents are scattered and you just can’t get everyone in.

If you or your teammate is being chased, always remember that you can use silence to stop them from stunning, slowing, or nuking you.

Early game, you must be quick with your fingers to stop your opponents should they initiate a combo. The casting range for silence is larger than most, if not all spells that other heroes can dish out. Notable exceptions are swap, assassinate, rupture, and more that I can’t think of.

3. Exorcism

Exorcism is your signature spell. You will absolutely demolish any tower with this spell and wreak havoc in team battles. The trick with this spell is actually surviving long enough to do significant damage. Nothing stops the ghosts except you being dead. As you already know, this is the reason why survival items are crucial on DP. That is the only way you can fully utilize exorcism.

Don’t use this spell to kill one or two heroes. Once you cast exorcism, all they have to do is run away from you or if they can kill you fast, they’ll just kill you. It drains a huge amount of mana so always use it in pushes and team battles, nothing else.

The evil spirits do physical damage, so avatar doesn’t stop the ghosts from damaging your opponents. When the ghosts are returning to you, let them return to you. The ghosts heal you as they return. If you run from it, they will just vanish without healing you.

The most effective way to utilize this skill is to get rid of any creeps around. You want your evil spirits to focus on as few targets as possible. The creeps takes away potential damage that could be done to your opponents since you can’t totally control what they hit. For that reason, having allies that can quickly get rid of creeps is a huge bonus to you. All you need is one ally with an AOE spell and you can use your carrion swarm and all the creeps will be gone.

1. Worst Enemies

Antimage and pugna
The two typical anti casters. Mana void will decimate you and nether ward will rape you. Don’t ever get caught alone by AM. If you have level two silence and BOT, just quickly silence him and teleport away. There is no real counter to pugna’s nether ward. Just hope that the ward isn’t plucked down before you have to cast your ultimate.

Lina, Lion

Basically any combo nukers who can instantly bring your hp down to nothing are your worst enemies. Try to silence them before you get caught by their spells.

2. Good Allies

Tanks

Heroes such as abaddon and doom are excellent teammates as they’ll load off focus fire from you.

Creep destroyers

Heroes such as QOP and SK are excellent for your ghosts to deal maximum damage. The idea is to get rid of all the enemy creeps and let your ghosts swoop down and show how they are full of win. Remember, you can’t completely control what your ghosts hit so getting rid of creeps is an excellent way of maximizing your damage with exorcism.

Initiators

Heroes such as SK, leviathan and faceless void are perfect teammates just designed to work with you. They are the initiators of team battles and they work extremely well on taking the focus off of you. Ravage let’s your ghosts eat their hearts out and epicenter slows your opponents as well as gets rid of any creeps in the area. Chronosphere is particularly nice since your ghosts will still do damage in the area. Those spells also lets you land a good silence easily.

3. Replays

tdastomp.w3g ( 1.27mb )
Number of downloads: 735

Lanes:

Top: SA dazzle enchantress bristle

Middle: DP zeus leshrac ogre magi

Bottom: Jugg centaur

TDA game. Not a good replay to put up since the scourge team were noobs (feeding enchantress talking shit lawl). Game ended with my full item build. I do things a little different. For instance, I got exorcism at level 6 and I never bought a single ward. I didn’t think they were worth getting wards for and I was correct.

However, the general strategy is presented in the guide. Good use of silence and exorcism throughout the game.

DPBUILD.w3g ( 907.52k )
Number of downloads: 761

Another TDA replay. My opponents are slightly better than the previous replay and my teammates were definitely better. Hero_Frenzy plays as QOP in this game.

Lanes:

Top: DP BS Visage Spectre

Mid: NA DK Morphling Drow

Bottom: QOP Sven

Nothing much to say except this replay is around 5 times better than my previous. The previous replay shows more about the power of silence since I used silence alot. This replay was more about warding and pushing with exorcism. Shows how to play DP correctly.

DPCAL.w3g ( 859.31k )
Number of downloads: 406

Lanes:

Top: PotM Leshrac Sand King

Silencer Shadow Fiend

Zeus Vengeful Spirit Raigor Death Prophet Pugna

This is my CAL-O match. Our leshrac and shadow fiend starts off by lagging horribly, costing them kills and deaths as well as farming power. The tri-lane at bottom was scary at first, but it was easy to counter because they weren’t particularly good with it. I suspect they never got much practice with their tri-laning. We gave a few deaths and got a few kills. If they were more experienced we would’ve gotten ripped apart though. I believe this replay should show people how important vanguard/BOT/heart build on DP is. Enjoy.

4. Conclusion

Like I said, I’m a horrible writer so nothing much to say here. As always, I will only accept constructive criticisms with ample evidence. So things like “WTF NOOB YOUR GUIDE SUCKS” and “YOUR ITEMS SUCK GET DR/AEGIS AND U WIN GAURANTEE” will not be tolerated. Actually try to back up your suggestions and disapprovals with some kind of supporting argument. I am generally open to suggestions since no one is perfect. If I find that my build is not effective, I will always try to improve it. Thanks for reading and enjoy playing this boring hero.

5. Credits

- inDe_eD for his guide format.
- Goomby for his list of hero stats, descriptions, mana costs, spell cooldowns and AOEs.
- BloOdy for his carrion swarm picture.