Asian Girls | Dota Guide and Strategy

ICallBotSolo’s guide to Nevermore

Disclaimer
This guide was built on version 6.41. As of 6.42, there has been a nerf to the aoe of shadowraze from 325 to 275. Expect many of the pictures and/or videos to have outdated information.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
   1. Hero and Skill Information
   2. Pros and Cons
   3. Your role on the team
2. The Build
   1. Skills
   2. Items
3. Strategy
   1. Early game (1-6)
   2. Mid game (7-17)
   3. Late game (18-25)
   4. Super late game (25+)
4. Other Heroes
5. Videos
6. Pictures
7. Replays
8. FAQ
9. Closing

I. Introduction
This build is centered around the use of Shadowraze backed up by a Eul’s Scepter of Divinity. This is a very unorthodox build, and you will take many people by surprise, both on your team and on your opponent’s team. Why is shadowraze Nevermore a great build, viable for both pubs and high-level play? Well, it gives you strong nuking power early game (up to a 900 nuke at level 7, if executed perfectly…. for only 225 mana!), synergizes with your skills at mid game, and allows great farming for your lothars.

I.A Hero and Skill Information
This data is taken from 6.41. This link from dota-allstars.com should contain the latest information on this hero.

Shadow Fiend is located on the Scourge side, top right tavern, middle row, far right column.

Hero Abilities

Shadowraze (Z, X, C)
Gives the Shadow Fiend the power to desecrate regions in front of him at varying distances.
Level 1 - 75 damage
Level 2 - 150 damage
Level 3 - 225 damage
Level 4 - 300 damage

Cooldown - 10 seconds
Manacost - 75/75/75/75
Approximately .3~.5 second cast time

This is the major aspect of this build. It allows you to harass enemies, get long-range kills, and push very fast. The way this skill work is that you will have 3 icons along the bottom of your command set. They will have the same icon, but different hotkeys. The hot keys are Z, X, and C, which correspond with their location. Z will shadowraze at a distance of 200 in front of you, with a 275 aoe (i.e. will hit everything from -75 to 475). X will hit 450 with a 275 aoe, and C will hit a shadowraze at 700 with 275 aoe. You will always shadowraze in the direction directly in front of you (think like PotM’s leap command). Each distance has it’s own cooldown, so you could slide your finger across the ZXC keys, and cast 3 in a row, and then repeat 10 seconds later. This skill is kind of hard to get used to, but with just a few games, you’ll be shadowrazing like a master!

Necromastery
Whenever the Shadow Fiend kills a target, he stores the unfortunate soul inside of him. For each stored soul he gains 2 bonus damage until his own death releases half of them from bondage.
Level 1 - 16 damage limit
Level 2 - 30 damage limit
Level 3 - 46 damage limit
Level 4 - 60 damage limit
~passive~

This will be our mid-game skill, combined with shadow-raze. This is what most shadow-fiend guides focus on. It is an important skill to use, and understand. It is a very powerful skill, very useful for last-hitting early game, however, we’re going to focus on shadowraze for our early game. Additionally, every time you die, you lose half of your souls. Also, the number of souls you have is directly proportional to your ultimate’s damage.

Presence of the Dark Lord
The presence of such a horrible creature terrifies nearby enemies, reducing their armor.
Level 1 - 1 armor reduction
Level 2 - 2 armor reduction
Level 3 - 3 armor reduction
Level 4 - 4 armor reduction
~passive aura~

Not a bad little skill, it has an AoE of 600, just enough for us to attack inside of. 4AC reduction isn’t too much, but it is definitely better than the +8damage, +8IAS, +8int and str from stats. Definitely worth picking up before lvl21. It also stacks with a stygian desloater or slithereen guard’s ultimate for some massive damage.

Requiem of Souls
Summons evil spirits around you dealing damage to units in the area. Number of spirits is related to the number of souls stored and the movement/damage reduction is related to the distance from the Shadow Fiend. Lowers movement speed and damage of nearby units. The closer the units are the greater the effect.

Cooldown: 120/110/100 seconds.
Manacost: 150/175/200
1 second cast time.

More specifically, the number of spirits you summon is the number of souls you have divided by 2, and then rounded up. So 1 soul = 1 spirit. 2 soul = 1 spirit. 3 soul = 2 spirit. 4 soul = 2 spirit….. 29 soul = 15 spirit. 30 soul = 15 spirit. If you have 1 spirit summoned, it is fired due east of you. If you have 2 spirits, they are fired due east and west of you. If you have 3 spirits, they are fired due east, north-west, and south-west of you, at 120 degree intervals. If you have 4, they’re fired east, north, west, and south. If you have 8 spirits, they’re fired east, north, west, south, and along the 4 major diagonals. Each spirit is actually a modified carrion swarm that deals 80/120/160 damage, and has a range of 700. You will only deal the slow and damage decrease if the unit is within 600 of you. The slow and damage debuff lasts 3 seconds. I’m not sure on the exact numbers for the slow, but it’s not very much. No more than 20%. The damage decrease is 25% for creeps, 15% for ancients, and I’m not sure about how much for heroes. Magic immune units are not hit by requiem.
The closer you are, the more damage you’ll deal. If you’re windwalked right on top of someone, you will deal 2400 damage (before 25% magic reduction, making it 1800 damage, or 1170 if they have aegis). Typically you’ll deal 300-600 damage at level 3 if you’re within melee range of someone.

That pretty much concludes all that I can say about the logistics of this hero.

I.B Pros and Cons
Pros:
Very high damage output, with a natural +60 modifier to damage.
Very strong aoe nuke.
Long list of good items for you.
Very small core item build.
(If you go for a early necromastery build) you can have very strong lane control, with your +60dmg at lvl7. We will still have decent lane control with this build.

Cons:
Low hp very fraile.
Low hp gain.
Did I mention that you’re likely to die quickly?
This build’s farming also relies on simultaneously pushing. Keep a hand on that euls and lothars at all times!

I.C Your role on the team
Your role on the team is pure damage and ganking unwary heroes. Your first job is to hit lvl7 and grab a euls as fast as possible. Then you should try to gank other heroes (don’t forget to euls if you have to escape!) while farming up for a lothars, which you should try to obtain quickly. Once you have lothars and euls, you can escape from pretty much any situation, and you should be trying to kill as much as possible. I’m not going to go into details on the usage of these items in terms of their synergy with ganking and escaping. That topic’s too broad to be covered here, and can likely be found in another guide. Mid-late game, your job is to push hard, while still being a hero killer. Late game, your job is to deal damage, pushing, defending, etc. This build requires a euls (later a guinsoo), so be sure to use that along with your teammates.

II The Build
Okay, time to get to the good stuff, what makes this guide special, and different from every other Nevermore guide out there (even from the other shadowrazing guide, as this build differs drasticly).

II.A Skills
1 - stats
2 - shadowraze
3 - shadowraze
4 - stats
5 - shadowraze
6 - stats
7 - shadowraze
8 - necromastery
9 - necromastery
10 - necromastery
11 - necromastery
12 - requiem of souls
13 - requiem of souls
14 - presence of the dark lord
15 - presence of the dark lord
16 - requiem of souls
17 - presence of the dark lord
18 - presence of the dark lord
19-25 - stats

This is a very radical and unorthodox skillset, as you can see. First level is stats, no ultimate until lvl12.

Why stats at level 1?
Stats gives you +2 to all stats, which is another 38 hit points, as well as 0.286 points of armor, and minor amounts of hp regen. Of course, you *could* opt to take shadowraze at lvl1, but I would suggest against doing so. You’ll hit level 3 fast enough, at which point shadowraze becomes twice as mana effective as at level 1. If you think your opponent’s a complete noob, and shadowraze will allow for first blood, go for it, but I’d personally take stats for the added hp, the extra 2 damage, and the extra mp and ias don’t exactly hurt for later on

Why no ult until level 12?
Your ult is usless without souls (necromastery), so don’t even bother until that’s maxed out.

Why no necromastery until level 8? - Shade_Assasin
This was the most difficult part of building this strategy, however, I feel that conversely it is one of the most vital parts as well. You’re too fraile to not put points in stats. If your hero goes raze/necro, you will have *incredibly* low hitpoints. If the enemy hero is any good, then you will not last. As an alternative to this, you can grab stats, and this will increase your hp by 114 at level 6. It also gives 78 mana, which helps out your shadowrazing, and 0.71 armor. Although grabbing necromastery could give you +46 damage, and a considerable amount of lane control, I feel that your ability to fight a hero is too gimped. You will not get a kill before level 6 if you go raze/necro. You will very likely be killed. With the listed build, I end up maxing necromastery at level 11, only 3 levels after level 8, which would be a pure raze/necro build. The level 8-11 range is a very small range of levels, and with your strong 3*300aoe nuke, you are unlikely to need the extra damage for kills.

Why do you obtain presence of the dark lord at lvl 14-18??
It’s not nearly as effective early and mid game as stats, shadowraze, and necromastery are. It’s very useful mid-late game, and this is when you’ll get it.

II.B Items
Opening items:
Ring of Regeneration - 375
Branch of GG - 57
Branch of GG (x2) - 57
Total starting items: 489
The actual opening items are not too important, but be sure to spend your money on things that give hp regen (including flasks or tangos) and hp (gg branches, circlets, gauntlets of strength, bracers, etc.) Do *not* try to skip this and just go straight for euls. You need some hp regen and hp. I have personally had success with RoR and GG branches, but this isn’t exactly important.

Next items:
Void stone - 900
Staff of Wizardry - 1000
Robe of the Magi - 450
Eul’s Scepter of Divinity recipe - 450
Boots of Speed - 500
Total first trip items: 3300
Unlike the opening items, this *is* important. This is what makes this strategy this strategy. This is what will make you the farming and pushing beast you are. This will allow you to spam your 300 dmg nukes and not worry about running out of mana. It additionally provides you with 6 charges of cyclone, useful for running away, completely synergetic with your low hp.
Buy your void stone first, and then the rest at your fountain. The boots are not as important as the euls, but I tend to get them at the same time. You’ll be dealing a lot of long-range nuking, and people will try to run away. Without boots, you’ll probably lose at least 1 kill, but don’t worry about it too much.

And then:
Blades of Alacrity - 1000
Claymore - 1400
Lothar’s Edge - 1400
Total lothars cost: 3800.
Lothars is the cornerstone of any successful shadow fiend build. It allows you to escape (useful due to your low hp), it allows you to get in close for your ult (extreme damage), and it allows you some increased movespeed for a chase. Lothars is superior to a blink dagger for the sole reason that casting your ult does not remove windwalk until it finishes casting. If you blink in, prepare to die before you even finish casting, but with lothars, you can get a good jump on your opponent.

Total core item build: 7589
As you can see, this is very cheap, and allows you for a ton of room for expansion. After this core item build, however, I personally suggest finishing the guinsoo, grabbing a butterfly, or a stygian desolater. Other great items are radiance, mkb, or Buriza. A heart would also help increase your survivability, but that might be overkill, becuase you already have a disable and a windwalk. Play around and find what works best for you and your playstyle.

After lothars
At this point in the game, you should be getting items on a purely situational basis. However, here are a list of a few items that you’ll find yourself frequently building.
Aegis - Gives you 10 armor, and a total of 51.25% magic reduction. Also 3 charges of reincarnation keep you from dying, and keep you farming up.
Boots of Travel - A necessity for any league-play. Provides chasing and running ability as well as teleportation to any unit that your allies (not you) control. (Thanks to Shade_Assasin for the BoT+aegis suggestion. After testing his suggestion, I have found aegis + BoT to be very good items at this point in the game. Not necessary enough to be added to the core build, but I would say I use them about 60% of the time.)
Butterfly - Lots of attack speed and armor, as well as evasion!
Satanic - Lifesteal as well as death pact and hp increase. Very useful for staying in battles longer.
Stygian Desolater - A very underused item, but still very powerful. I plugged in the values for a lvl 18 Shadow Fiend with 3 points in stats, 30 souls, 4 points in presence of the dark lord, boots of speed, ring of regeneration, 2 ironwood branches, lothars, and a guinsoo. Here are the results:
Stats:
BAS = 1.70
IAS = 78
damage = 212

As you can see, of the various “pure damage items,” stygian desolater is the most cost efficient below about 13 armor. Assuming you don’t want a divine rapier, stygian desolater is still the most cost effective until about 17.75 armor, when MKB becomes more cost effective. Grabbing a stygian desolater and an MKB is the most cost effective of the “pure damage” items.

Disclaimer:This data was from 6.42, before bloodstone, assault cuirass, and the hood of defiance. Use these at your discretion.

III Strategy
Here we go, how to effectively use the item build and skill build to out-farm, out-kill, and out-play your opponents!

III.A Early game (1-6)
For levels 1-3, just sit back and try for last hits. If the opponent walks too near, harass him with an attack or two. Be sure to deny and pull the line to your tower so that you don’t get ganked. At lvl2 you will get shadowraze, but don’t use it unless you really have to. At lvl3 you will get shadowraze lvl2, which is *twice* as mana effective as lvl1. If you can get a last hit on a creep while harassing the hero go for it, otherwise don’t really worry too much about it. Continue to last hit creeps. At lvl5, you will get lvl3 shadowraze, which will deal 169damage to heroes after damage mitigation. If you’ve been doing any decent harassing earlier, this is a good time to go in and move for first blood. Just remember how fraile you are, so that you don’t get FBed yourself. Alternatively to harassing with raze at lvl3, you can not use shadowraze at all until lvl5, and your opponent will assume that you are going necromastery/stats (he’ll be too stupid to notice that you have 8 denies and only +6 damage), and if you can go into 250 range, you can get off a ZX combo for 338 damage. Any player’s automatic instinct will be to run away. At which point you can get 1-2 hits and throw out a C for first blood If you don’t get a kill, don’t worry about it too much. Just keep on grabbing last hits and pulling the creeps to your tower, while keeping an eye on other lanes to make sure that no missing heroes come up to slay your little low-hp self. When you get 900 gold, go to the nearest secret shop and purchase a void stone. Try to hit lvl7 relatively quickly.

III.B Mid game (7-17)
This is somewhat of a large area of the game, and you’ll be obtaining a large amount of items and gold in this section. At lvl7, you have a 300*3*.75=675 damage nuke against heros. No one should want to come anywhere near you. You can 2-shot an entire wave of creeps with shadowraze. Scroll down to the bottom of the guide for some youtube videos of this. Walk into range of creeps, just before you attack, hit X. Then walk into melee range, and hit Z. With any luck, you’ll hit every creep in the wave with both attacks, instantly giving yourself 250 gold. You can also go through the forest and kill the neutral creeps in the same fashion. You should be able to finish your euls very fast. As soon as you have the gold for it (1900 + void stone), go get it. Do not hang around in your lane for 2400 gold for the boots of speed. Get the euls first, it will save your life. Then go back to hero killing, neutral farming, pushing a lane to the tower and then taking the tower. (You should be able to do this solo without any issues, with your ability to 2-shot waves of creeps.) Get the gold for your lothars as soon as possible (3800 gold for it total). You should be around lvl13-15 when you complete your lothars. At this point, you will have (unless you’ve died) a full 30 souls. Go around and find a crystal maiden or a zeus. Windwalk, run up to him, hit R, and watch him nearly die in one hit, followed up by 2-3 autoattacks, or some shadowrazing if you have the aim for it. As you approach the end of the midgame, you should be dealing massive massive damage, and have tons of gold. If you ever run out of charges on your euls, go ahead and turn it into a guinsoo (2375 gold). The euls gives you +35 damage, as well as some more mana regen and intellect. If you’re feeling confident, you can try to push down bottom (if you’re sentinel) tier 2 tower, or top tier two (if you’re you’re scourge) solo with you’re insane pushing ability. You’re also dealing 200 damage a hit, so the towers themselves should fall pretty quickly. Don’t forget to farm the neutrals. You don’t want your opponents noticing you too much and trying to follow you all over the map. Just move in, kill 2-3 waves of creeps, get out and farm the entire forest, kill a wave or 2 in another lane, take the tower, back to neutral, etc.

III.C Late game (18-25)
This is where this guide and other shadow fiend guides merge together. Grab a stygian desolater, or a butterfly, or your favorite dps weapon. A mask of madness is good for Nevermore. Really any item at all is good for you. Aside from a vladmir’s and battlefury, there’s no “bad” item for you at this point. Start pushing tier3 towers with your teammates and trying to kill any enemy heroes that stray from your path. With any hope, you’ll deal so much damage that the other heroes won’t stand a chance. Don’t forget to use your guinsoo/euls to help set up enemy heroes for the onslaught of your team. A dead hero at river is a hero that won’t defend their tier 3. Grab the rax and the main and it’s GG.

III.D Super late game (25+)
If the game has lasted this long, something went wrong. But never fear, you already have a guinsoo, one of the best items for super-late game. You’re gonna be kind of weak here, and may want to seriously consider investing in a heart or a satanic. I suppose the dream combination for nevermore would be something like: guinsoo, lothars, Boots of travel, satanic, butterfly, buriza.

IV Other heroes
Who to work with
Sentinel
Zeus - His ult can help take down any heroes that straggle away from you in the first part of the game. You have no stun or slow, so it happens more than you’d like
Rhasta - Shackles+voodoo+nevermore beating on a hero = dead hero.
Traxex - Slow arrows work great with your high dmg attacks for chasing heroes down.
Omniknight - degen aura, purification, guardian angel and repel help out your low hp… all around great hero to have as an ally!
Scourge
Medusa - Purge is great for chasing heroes down.
Slardar - Your aura and his ult stack, for extreme damage! If one of you get a stygian, that’s MINUS 25 ARMOR on a player. They won’t last long.
Bane Elemental - Fiends grip ftw. What else can I say?
Spirit Breaker - Charge stun, nether strike stun, greater bash… all with a nevermore beating on someone…. great synergy.
Geomancer - with a little perma-net action going on… there’s no way that clinkz will get away, and geostrike’ll help significantly with chasing heroes down.

Who to avoid
Sentinel
Enchantress - Although only annoying later game, laning against her for the first 6 levels can permanently cripple you for the rest of the game. If you’re solo against enchantress, call for backup immediately, or change lanes.
Lina Inverse - A stun, a huge-ass nuke, and a dragon slave…. you’ll never live up to it. Avoid her at all costs. Euls her if you see her and run away, or ww. Don’t even think about attacking her unless you’re absolutely sure she’ll be dead before she has a chance to attack you. She will 2shot you.
Techies - With your low hp, it only takes a few mines for you to die. And a gem is not an option for a low-hp hero such as yourself. Spam sentry-wards or hang around the tank on your team who has a gem.
Sniper - Although you can kill him quickly, if you don’t successfully kill him, and he manages to escape away with any hp left, he’ll assasinate you from distance while you die.
Scourge
Lion - Same as lina inverse, only with one less nuke and one more disable. Finger impale dead.
Nerubian Assassin - Stealth+3nukes+disable = dead.
Doom - Doom prevents lothars from working, and takes off the majority of your hit points. If you’re not at fullhp beforehand, you’re dead.
Pudge - Hook/rot/dismemember dead.
Harbinger - As the game goes on, his ultimate will 1-shot you.

Who to kill
(Sorry, but I ran over my maximum image limit. No more pretty icons for our heroes.)
Sentinel
Rikimaru, the Stealth Assasin - Low hp, and shadowraze goes through his invisibility.
Yurnero, the Juggernaut - Low hp, no stuns, easy target. When you get lothars, you become immune to omnislash.
Ezalor, the Keeper of the Light - Low hp, no stuns, easy kill.
Scourge
Krobulous, the Death Prophet - Low hp, no disable.
Black Arachnia, the Brood Mother - He thinks he’s safe in his web…. but with 3 quick razes through it, he’s sure to be hit by at least one.
Bone Clinkz, the Bone Fletcher - Low hp, and shadowraze can hit invisible units.
Anub’seran, the Nerubian Weaver - low hp, easy to kill.
Meepo, the Geomancer - Only gotta kill one, and they’re low hp Just make sure he doesn’t have an ally around!

VIII FAQ
“Will shadowraze killing give you extra souls?” - iameric
Yes. This is one of the best parts of this build. Once you hit level 7 and have your euls, you can pretty much spam shadowraze. With all the neutral-farming and pushing that you’ll be doing in this this time period, you should always be at your maximum number of souls. There is very good synergy between these 2 skills.

“Don’t you need necromastery early to do any decent amount of farming early game?” - mjmetro
Although this is contrary to most players’ typical usage with shadow-fiend, it is not necessary to have necromastery to farm early game. Your major source of income pre-lvl 8 will be from hero kills. Unless your enemy plays far, far back, you should have no issue killing them with your 900 distance nuke. So if the enemy stays back, you have dominance of the lane. If he doesn’t stay back, you kill him, get the bounty gold, and then have dominance of the lane.
“But what about levels 8-11, won’t using shadowraze push the creeps too far and you’ll get ganked?” - mjmetro
Although the quick pushing seems to be a curse at this level, it actually turns out to be a blessing. With your ability to 2-shot an entire wave of creeps, it becomes trivial to take out your opponent’s tier 1 tower in your lane, even with 2 heroes defending. This will get you the equivalent of every last hit on 2 waves of creeps. It is unlikely that you will be ganked at this stage of the game, as very few players will change lanes in this stage of the game to stop a creep push. But if you notice even 1 missing hero from the nearest lane, you can easily go into the forest, and quickly farm out 2, 3, or even 4 creep camps before the next creep wave arrives. This ability to get every creep kill in your lane while also getting as many as 3 or 4 creep camps between waves is true farming dominance. Although your opponent might be getting a few creep kills (since you are not denying your own creeps if you are in the forest), you will be getting so much more. I strongly suggest watching the replay I have posted below to understand how powerful, not gimped, you are in this part of the game.

“I think a void stone is enough, isn’t euls overkill?” -thehailehuy
To quote zarakon:

“Why would you grab a lothars? Everyone knows that blink dagger has a lower cooldown, costs less mana, costs less gold, and isn’t countered by a 375g ward.” - thehailehuy
The difference between lothars and blink dagger is requiem of souls. There’s a very nice trick to combine requiem and a lothars. The trick is that if you are windwalked, and begin to cast requiem, you will not come out of windwalk until your spell finishes casting. So unless the other team has wards, the only thing preventing you from getting upclose and personal with a close-range requiem of souls is your ability to escape (which you incidently have a euls for!).

IX Closing
This was my first guide. I hope all of you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope that you learned something new about early-game itemization options on Nevermore. Please post some comments, positive or negative, as long as they’re constructive. Thanks for reading