My Guide To One Of The Top Heroes In DotA SHADOW FIEND!

This guide, I believe, will help everyone, from beginners who want to know more about this game to experienced players who are already playing clan wars. This guideis quite long, but hopefully you’ll get through...but before I start, here's something for those of you who have never seen Nevermore at his finest...or those of you who still think that a 50 minute free-farm Medusa is actually what DotA really is!

Alt-Tab Concise Guide for the Shadow Fiend

Skill Build:

Level 1: Necromastery
Level 2: Shadowraze
Level 3: Shadowraze
Level 4: Necromastery
Level 5: Shadowraze
Level 6: Necromastery
Level 7: Shadowraze
Level 8: Necromastery
Level 9: Requiem of Souls
Level 10: Stats
Level 11: Requiem of Souls
Level 12: Presence of the Dark Lord
Level 13: Presence of the Dark Lord
Level 14: Presence of the Dark Lord
Level 15: Presence of the Dark Lord
Level 16: Requiem of Souls
Level 17-25: Stats

Starting Items:



Early Game Items:

 OR 


Core Items:



OR



OR

OR
+



(If your game is not going so well)

Luxury Items:

 AND  OR  OR 

Various Tips:

• Take the Mid Solo.
• For the early game, it's about 75% Farm and 25% Gank.
• Runewhore as much as you can.
• Farm a lot for the first 30 minutes, then focus on pushing. Never over farm.
• Start pushing once you have BKB and preferably Dagger/Lothars on top of Boots of Travel.
• Dealing massive amounts of AoE damage in teamfights is what you do.
• Last but not least...Practice Makes Perfect.

Hero Profile: Nevermore the Shadow Fiend

Affiliation: Scourge
Attack Animation: 0.5 / 0.54
Damage: 35 - 41
Casting Animation: 0.67 / 0.4
Armor: 1.9
Base Attack Time: 1.7
Movespeed: 300
Missile Speed: 1200
Attack Range: 500
Sight Range: 1800 / 800
15 + 2
20 + 2.4
18 + 2

Part One: the Shadow Fiend's Arsenal

Shadowraze

Gives the Shadow Fiend the power to desecrate regions in front of him at varying distances.
• Damage type: magical
• When Shadow Raze is learned, three independent skills will be given to Nevermore, each one generating a Shadow Raze at a specific distance in front of him.
Mana Cost (All Levels): 75
Damage (Levels 1-4 respectively): 75, 150, 225, 300
Cooldown (All Levels): 10 seconds
AoE (Area of Effect): 275
Shadowraze (Z) Cast Range: 200
Shadowraze (X) Cast Range: 450
Shadowraze (C) Cast Range: 700

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.
Ability Type: Passive 
Damage Cap (Levels 1-4 respectively): 16, 30, 46, 60
• Heroes, denies and neutral creeps also provide Bonus damage through Necromastery.
• The more souls Nevermore has, the more powerful Requiem of Souls will be.

Presence of the Dark Lord

The presence of such a horrible creature terrifies nearby enemies, reducing their armour.
Ability Type: Passive 
Armour Reduced (Levels 1-4 Respectively): 2, 3, 4, 5
• Fully stacks with other armour reduction abilities and auras.
• Is not affected by magic immunity e.g. Black King Bar.

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.

Ability Type: Active 

Ability Hotkey: R

Damage in each line (evil spirit) from Level 1-3: 80, 120, 160

Movement speed reduction, from Level 1-3: 15%, 20%, 25%

Channelling time: 1 Second

Mana cost, from Level 1-3: 150, 175, 200

AoE, from Level 1-3: 1300, 1325, 1350

Duration of slow on all Levels: 5 seconds
• Damage type: magical
• The amount of damage dealt is related to the number of souls captured with Necromastery.
• Requiem of Souls generates damaging lines around Nevermore, 1 per 2 souls stored, for a maximum of 15 lines.
• The closer the targeted unit is, the bigger the amount of lines affecting him.
• Reduces both movement speed and attack damage of units in a 700 AoE.
• This skill breaks invisibility a short time before it's released.
• This skill has a 1 second cast time

Skill Explanation:

Perhaps a difficult-to-explain ability to some, but the mechanism is simple—the closer Nevermore is to the target whilst he casts Requiem of Souls, the greater damage he unleashes upon that target. If correctly used, Requiem of Souls will create devastating damage in a team fight, especially when combined with items such as Kelen’s Dagger (Lothar’s edge, in my opinion, is a valid but easily countered option—will be discussed in much greater depth later)

.

Nevermore's Ultimate can do a massive amount of damage in team battles. This is taken from one of my many Inhouse games with my friends' clan. Thanks a lot, guys.

If Nevermore’s character model completely ‘overlaps’ with the target (achievable with items such as Phase boot or Lothar’s Edge), the target will receive 100% of the damage from Requiem of Souls, which amounts of 15 ‘spirits’, each dealing 160 damage: the target receives 2400 damage, 1800 damage if magic resistance is considered as well. This is more than enough to kill off literally any heroes in the middle game, though it is quite rare that you will actually have the chance to deal the full amount of damage. Nonetheless, Requiem of Souls is a potent skill that can unleash total chaos and devastation, though it should not be skilled until Necromastery is maxed out first.

How to Shadowraze Properly and Effectively as a Nevermore user:

Big thank you to Aughing @ Replays.Net for this image! As you can see, your ‘X’ Shadowraze is roughly about the same distance from you as your attack range. The AoE for your 'Z' raze is almost at melee range and the AoE for your 'C' raze can be taken as the distance between Nevermore (who's last-hitting a melee creep) and the ranged creeps on the other side.

As you can see, the AoEs of Shadowraze can seem bigger than how you might have imagined it-and technically if the target you are Shadowrazing is at exactly the 450 range mark, he will receive the damage of all three Shadowrazes. However, it is still important as a Nevermore player to imagine the AoEs of your Shadowrazes a tad smaller than they are in reality, so that you have that feel of the 'pin-point accuracy' that is really required to land a nice, solid, accurate Shadowraze.


A popular strategy amongst many beginners, therefore, is to attack the target first and then immediately press ‘X’. Most of the time, assuming the target is slowed or stunned, the Shadowraze will hit. ‘Z’ is relatively simple to hit as it is literally at melee range, whilst ‘C’ is simply 3 AoE’s away from Nevermore. ‘C’ is possibly the hardest to aim out of the three Shadowrazes and a great deal of practice is required to aim them properly.


There are some cases that really don’t give you the chance to attack the target first and you must use your instincts and your experience to aim those razes. I usually right click on the ground closest to my target before I calculate the distance in my head and decide whether to use ‘Z’, ‘X’ or ‘C’.


In most cases, there are about 4 kinds of scenarios that may arise when you try Shadowraze someone:


1. A stunner (e.g. Sven) comes in and stuns someone. You raze him twice, most likely with your ‘X’ and ‘C’ razes (the 2 second stun doesn’t really allow for all 3 of your razes to hit) and hopefully with a couple of extra attacks, you’ve managed to rack up a kill. This is the safest, and by far, the most common way of killing someone with your Shadowrazes. This accounts for around 70 % of my kills with Nevermore. Heres an example when my teammate Furion and Spectre (some sort of global strategy there, once again one of Loda's creations) helps me gank the other's team's main carry, Drow Ranger.

I was hiding in the Scourge forest when I told my teammate, Furion, to trap Drow Ranger with his spell 'Sprout' so we can gank her. This was an Inhouse game that wasn't particularly serious so there weren't too much wards around.

Boom comes in the Sprout...Drow Ranger is taken completely by surprise. I take my position carefully and...

'X' and 'C', That's it. So easy, but do make sure that you get it right every time!

2. You’re retreating into the Fog of War (your opponents can no longer see you, for that matter) and a bunch of enemy heroes are chasing after you. Because they can’t see you, you turn around and raze them (most likely ‘C’, ‘X’ then ‘Z’) and they walk right into your razes. Or your might cast your powerful Ultimate and they run right into your Requiem of Souls.

This is called abusing the Fog of War (even though it is in fact perfectly legitimate and forms interesting mindgames) and is mostly used when you have very little HP left and you want to pull off a kill—assuming you know what you’re doing. This accounts for around 5% of my kills, but are satisfying in a way as you’ve literally cheated death…and brought demise upon your unlucky opponent.

This example is taken from a test video by a very brilliant DotA player and movie maker, Tews. Let’s see how he manages to rack up a kill using Fog of War to his advantage! (Notice his item build and the fact that Treant will probably have vision of him very soon, so it is up to the Nevermore user’s reflexes to make the most out of those few seconds when he’s invisible to Treant).

He blinks and immediately casts ‘C’. See his reflexes? Practice makes perfect!

Boom comes in that ‘X’ raze as well, even though you can’t see it yet…

And boom comes in the ‘Z’ raze. An easy kill for Nevermore.

3. You managed to get a rune (haste, invisibility etc), but there are no allies around and you’re absolutely sure the guy you’re killing doesn’t have a stun on his back, or a windwalk, or any mana. Let’s just say Zeus who only has enough mana for a single Lightning Bolt. You basically walk right up to him, or try sneak near him, and you raze him and hopefully all 3 razes hit.

To be honest, this is risky game play because there are no allies to help you. Nevermore is a fragile hero and in order for all 3 razes to hit he must be very close to the target first. The main problem, of course, is to actually deal enough damage, as the 3 razes only account for 675 damage and it is important to ‘snuck in’ a couple of attacks so you actually kill him.

Unlike a hero like Tinker who can just nuke the crap out of anyone, using Nevermore’s nukes require patience and a cool head as a single miscalculation or misclick can result in a miss, and the target gets away with red HP. This probably accounts for 15 % of my kills with Nevermore, and most of those kills I garnered in the past few months as Shadowraze takes time to master completely.

See how the great Nirvana.KuroKy did it! He’s one of my favourite DotA players and this is taken from ‘Kuroky the Movie’ by Say_43_Plz. KuroKy had just managed to kill Sand King and Dirge thinks he can solo Nevermore. Of course, he’s wrong.

KuroKy hits Dirge a couple more times and goes for the killer Shadowraze (‘C’), but Dirge just manages to heal himself with Soul Rip! See how much damage Nevermore’s normal attacks and Shadowraze do? Dirge is quite a ‘beefy’ hero, but when he’s up against Nevermore, he’s out of HP in no time. Can KuroKy rack up a kill?

And all it took KuroKy was another raze, this time the ‘X’, and Dirge falls victim to Nevermore once again.

4.

A hero with nearly no HP turns invisible and thanks to the fact your Shadowrazes can actually hit invisible units, you try raze where he’s going to be in a few seconds and hopefully, you pull it off. What I define as ‘blind raze’ is not someone running into the fog for less than a second and having pressed ‘x’ already, I press ‘c’ and ‘magically’ my ‘imbaness’ allows me to hit the guy who tried sneaking into the fog of war.

A blind raze is when the target has literally vanished off the map for more than three seconds and all you’ve got is your instinct. An experienced player will most likely know where you will target your blind razes and will go the opposite way and landing a blind raze is really the same as landing a no-scope with an AWP in CS: in most cases, it’s about 40 % luck and 60 % map awareness.

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This is taken from one of Sogovegeta’s DotA videos, ‘Nevermore the Dark Knight Returns’. He’s one of the most inspirational players out there and this is probably one of the best, actual ‘blind razes’ I’ve seen anyone do. He spots Clinkz with only 2/3 HP and he probably knows that the next couple of seconds will probably end up in his DotA video! (AXAXA)

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He lands a couple of hits on Clinkz and as you can see, Nevermore’s attacks are very powerful during the Middle game. He tries to Shadowraze but since the direction wasn’t quite right…

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He cancels it, saving him 75 mana and some embarrassment. But what about Clinkz? 

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There we go! He lands a good solid ‘X’ raze on Clinkz and he’s almost dead. But then, he Windwalks.

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In most cases, Clinkz would probably have gone path A, so he razes there with ‘C’ and obviously, no one’s dead. But he’s go that Kelen’s Dagger of his, plus his ‘Z’ raze which he cancelled earlier

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And voila! Shadowraze gets in just in time. A testament to Sogovegeta’s amazing blind razes and to some extent, luck!

The hardest razes to land, in my opinion, are in fact not the so called ‘blind razes’ but ones that require some very precise ‘clicking’. As I said before, Shadowrazes require pinpoint accuracy to land (even though there is a small AoE with each raze) and it is important that you understand how to face your opponent ‘properly’ so you can hit them with the correct corresponding raze.

So you may ask—what do I mean by precise ‘clicking?

It is important to do this as fast as possible as multiple adjustments can result in your opponent getting away (which is always annoying) and experience, plus practice, would eventually increases your chances of landing such razes drastically. It is still quite difficult for me, to this day, to land such razes and I would think my accuracy in such razes would be around 50% -- assuming I do not cancel it with ‘Stop’ and readjust myself. Sometimes, a single click could decide whether you land yourself a kill or end up dead. Using the ‘Move’ command on Nevermore and adjust your direction is a bread and butter skill for every Nevermore user.

I was soloing mid against Morphling. I managed to get a couple of hits plus two of my Level 4 Shadowrazes on him and he gets away with only a tiny bit of HP left. I didn't YET have mana for another raze and he turned on Morph to stay alive, and it wasn't when he reached the runed spot, did he have just enough mana for a Waveform.

The first diagram shows a variety of places a Nevermore player might click to point Nevermore at the right direction. The 'X' marks the various spots where one should NOT click because that will position Nevermore towards the wrong way. Try click on the circle around the letter 'A' (which is what I did) and the 'C' raze manages to just hit Morphling and secure a kill in true Shadow Fiend style.

It is virtually impossible to list every scenario where precise clicking is required, but here are a couple of hints:

1. Never actually click on your target. Instead click on the ground right next to the target.

2. If there’s something between you and your target (for example, trees, hills etc.) never try click on the target or anything around it. Instead, click on the foot on the obstacle that enables you to line yourself up with the target (Nevermore-Foot of the Obstacle-Enemy Target). 

Last but not least…:

There’re two more things that need to be talked over about Shadowrazes—Canceling your Shadowrazes and Quick-Raze. Mastering those two elements can improve your game in ways you cannot imagine, just like how mastering Quickswitching and Quickscoping can give your AWP game a real boost in CS.

Shadowraze takes around 0.5 seconds to cast and sometimes due to unforeseen reasons, your razes will miss once in a while. Canceling Shadowrazes is simple—before the cast animation of Shadowraze finishes (Nevermore raising his hands to deliver a raze) and raze comes out, you press the ‘S’ or ‘Stop’ key and this means Nevermore stops everything he was doing.

What about Lothar’s Edge?

-vs-

Lothar’s Edge used to be one of my favourite items for Nevermore, but its usefulness is decreasing steadily and while it remains a decent choice in pub games, Lothar’s Edge is quite rarely seen in Clan Wars or the vast majority of Inhouse Games (though I have seen MiseRy- going for Lothar’s Edge once in a while when he uses Nevermore). I hardly ever go for Lothar’s Edge nowadays. Now why is that?

One: Kelen’s Dagger gives you the initiative. If you have Lothar’s Edge and you try land a good Ultimate midst a team battle, you have to Windwalk in first—and if your opponents get Dust or Sentry Wards, you’re very vulnerable (even if you have BKB). With Kelen’s Dagger, you can stay well back and blink-ulti when you see the time is right (most likely after all those mass stuns have all been casted, such as Tidehunter’s Ravage).

Two: To some extent, if the player has enough reflexes, Kelen’s Dagger is far more useful as an escape mechanism compared to Lothar’s Edge (assuming your opponents are decent enough to buy Dust against you). You might ask: “But Kelen’s Dagger can’t be used three seconds after you get attacked!” That is true. But what’s the point of Windwalking away if they can see you with Dust and you die anyway?

Three: Kelen’s Dagger is far cheaper compared to Lothar’s Edge, and I would much rather prefer getting Kelen’s Dagger and almost a Boots of Travel than just Lothar’s Edge. In fact, I would even prefer BKB over Lothar’s Edge. Sure, Lothar’s Edge gives you a way of escape. But with Kelen’s Dagger and BKB, you can actually do something to change how the game is going and really contribute to team battles.

Hint: Lothar’s Edge does work wonders in pubs, so if you can farm it in less than 16 minutes, then by all means do so! The extra DPS really helps in most cases and most pub players are too lazy to buy Dust. You will find, however, that the better you opponents are, the more pointless it becomes to buy Lothar’s Edge. That’s just my opinion.

So if you ever consider buying Lothar’s Edge as one of your items, get it ASAP!

OR

Try getting Lothars in any of those two orders—the BKB really helps when you try pull off a good Ultimate. Lothars does give you a more aggressive early-mid game, which is why it is so popular in pubs.

So When Should I Expect Myself to Get Those Items?

Since every game’s different, it is hard to say when someone would ‘expect’ himself to farm Nevermore those items. I’ve managed to get Lothar’s Edge, BKB and Boots of Travel in less than 23 minutes and in another game I only managed to get Boots of Travel + BKB by the 30th minute mark.

As a general rule of thumb, though, in a ‘normal’ game (there isn’t really that much ganking, you haven’t died a lot etc), one would expect Nevermore to have Boots of Travel, Dagger and BKB by AT LEAST the 30th minute mark. I think it is fair to say that if you can’t farm them quick enough, then you wouldn’t be as effective as you will be in team battles because team battles are a frequent occurrence after the 30th minute mark. So work on those last hits, learn how to combine farm with a bit of gank and soon you’ll be able to farm those items in no time.

Try get at least 150 last-hits by the 30th minute mark and at least 250-300 by the 1 hour mark. I've seen many players to a lot more than this and do I think that this is a reasonable amount of farm for a Nevermore player. Don't rush yourself too much on the first try though, and definitely DON'T overfarm.

Nevermore’s Role in Team Battles:

It is virtually impossible to list every scenario here, but a general rule of thumb would be staying back from your teammates until the initiators (such as Earthshaker and Tidehunter) have done their job. Nevermore is a poor initiator but is a brilliant hero for dealing huge amounts of AoE damage and mopping up the battlefield, so to speak.

I would usually check if there are heroes on the other side who have Ultimates that can go through BKB (such as Beastmaster’s Primal Roar, Doom Bringer’s Doom, to list a few). I would wait till those Ultimates have already been used, and/or they are already stunned, before I start off my combo.

First of all: make sure you have a cool head, because the next few seconds can decide the fate of your team.

Secondly: walk up to the battle, preferably at the maximum distance of your blink (which is around 1150) which corresponds to around two-thirds the length of your screen.

See how dmZ^hexOr does it! He’s one of my favourite players and this is taken from one of this DotA videos, DotA: The Truth. See how he activates BKB first?

Thirdly: Activate BKB FIRST. This means that you’re invulnerable to magic BEFORE you blink in, because you won’t want to get stunned and get totally trashed once you’re in there.

Fourthly: Blink in, then quickly press ‘R’ to active Requiem of Souls.

He blinks in and casts Requiem of Souls. His teammate, the brilliant dmZ^Kev, gets that vacuum in just in time…

Fifthly: Use your Shadowrazes to mop up any resistance, snuck in some normal attacks if possible.

And boom! Triple kill, and great material for a DotA video. HP doesn’t really matter when you have the right items, the skills and some very cooperative teammates!(Though I think there were some kill-steals!)

If you decided to leave out Kelen’s Dagger in your item build or decided to use Lothar’s Edge, then simply wait after those nasty disables have all been casted, then walk right in and cast your Ulti. This requires a lot of teamwork to pull off, however, especially if you leave out Kelen’s Dagger or Lothar’s Edge and go straight to Manta Style. That’s why this particular build is only seen a lot in Clan Wars where you have reliable teammates.

Follow up items/Luxuries:

Since every game will be different, I wouldn’t be going over any particular build or any sort of a list of ‘rejected items’, so to speak. I’ve seen professional players put Vanguard and Dagon on Nevermore and still get a decent score, so be creative! But I must remind you that 95% of Nevermore games stick to the Boots of Travel + Dagger + BKB formula, so if you are playing serious, play it SAFE!

A good item that increases your DPS by more than 2-fold. In most cases it’s going to be your first DPS item. You gain plenty of Stats, extra movement speed (on top of your Boots of Travel or Power Treads) and on top of that, a temporary-invulnerability activation that allows you to dodge most targeted spells in DotA. Your images do huge amounts of extra damage and the extra damage multiplies when you get other DPS items. The only downside is that your images don't benefit from the +60 damage from Necromastery, however.

 AND 

A good combo when you’re playing against a lot of vulnerable spellcasters, or if you team is based around an anti-armour theme (such as Nevermore + Slarder + Lanaya Combo). Just make sure that you have BKB so that they don’t nuke you to death before you can even get your hands on them.

THEN

Lifesteal is something that every DPS-carry will eventually need. But try get Lifesteal AFTER you buy those DPS items e.g. The Butterfly.

A must for any Agility-carry hero.

Purge works wonders versus Broodmother’s Ultimate and Warlock’s annoying Infernal, so you might consider getting this item BEFORE you buy BKB and Kelen’s Dagger.

Best combined with Lifesteal OR Mjollnir, but Eye of Skadi is very expensive and doesn’t really give your DPS that massive boost that you really want. Gives plenty of Stats though.

THEN

Works wonders when you farm, but since you already have Shadowraze, Maelstrom and Mjollnir aren’t really worth their price. Best combined with Eye of Skadi.

Gives you massive amounts of extra damage. Divine Rapier is a particularly good item when combined with Satanic, and I’ve won several notable games with Nevermore thanks to a last minute decision of buying Divine Rapier. KuroKy has even recently gotten Divine Rapier as his FIRST ITEM in one game! So definitely get it if you have the Aegis of Immortal on you (and VERY good teammates), or if you know EXACTLY what you’re doing!

I would have to say Ethereal Blade is effective because it gives you agility and 40% Magic damage meaning landing those raze's while in ghost form or ultimate.

But I have gone Ghost Sceptre on Nevermore before and it works great against perma-bashers such as Faceless Void. Unfortunately using Ghost Sceptre and BKB at the same time does not work, but it is still a very viable option against perma-stuns and Ethereal Blade is a reasonable upgrade item as well. (And also watch when Faceless Void Timewalks in and uses Chronosphere)

An extra disable and some Stats is never bad, especially for a fast-farmer like Nevermore. But I won't prioritize this over the usual DPS items unless your team is really short of disables, or they have farmed-up, buffed-up guys like Troll or PA that you specifically wishes to target. Nevermore's farm means he can farm Guinsoos very quickly. I've seen Yamateh put Guinsoos on Nevermore quite a few times, combining Hex with Kelen's Dagger and the Stygian Desolator to easily take down vulnerable heroes such as Puck who would've else escaped quite easily.

While Linkens Sphere is relatively more commonly seen as a staple item on Nevermore, I've been toying around with the ideas of putting Euls, Refresher Orb and/or Shivas Guard on Nevermore as well. I've actually never tried them out in a real game (though I have seen ChuaN putting Euls on Nevermore and still get a decent score, even though his team eventually lost).

Shivas Guard gives lots of armour (which is always good), plenty of Mana, a very useful -IAS Aura in team fights and Arctic Blast which works in sync with Nevermore's Ultimate. I think it's a very interesting build on Nevermore. Refresher Orb can work wonders if you have good teammates. Finally, Euls needs no real explanation. Cyclone, activate your Ultimate and they will receive massive amounts of damage when they come back down.

There's a couple of interesting ideas. There's no limit when it comes to thinking up item ideas.

* * *

The thing about Nevermore is that while he’s an insanely fast pusher and a very fast farmer, the items that makes him EFFECTIVE in battle are not those big DPS item you load on him, but things like BKB and Kelen’s Dagger that maximizes Nevermore’s ability to deal a huge amount of AoE damage in a very short amount of time. Try not to over-farm with Nevermore, even though it is a temptation for most players. His only advantage over other DPS carries, really, is that Nevermore is a great AoE hero in the middle game and the fact that he can pretty much out-farm every other hero in the game. And THAT'S IT.

Nevermore is a good AoE carry, but he’s not that great of a DPS carry like Phantom Assassinwho can single-handedly turn the tide of the battle with a couple of crits. Your job, in the late game, is not to out-farm your opponent, but to act as a pusher and do what you can to make sure your team wins those important team battles. Sometimes you might even have to sacrifice yourself for a Tower so that you can buy back and push the other side. But really that’s out of the scope of this Guide.

Best Allies: 

Heroes with big AoE Ultimates that can help you pull off your Ultimate. Thanks to Magnus’s new ability, Skewer, it is possible to land a good combo with Nevermore without the help of Kelen’s Dagger. Magnus can also Empower Nevermore, which makes them a pair to be feared.

Heroes with mass-disables or Abilities can help you land that Ultimate or a couple of razes, so have them on your team never hurts. Ogre’s Bloodlust helps, too. Dark Seer’s Vacuum works wonders with Requiem of Souls. Omniknight's Repel gives you a free BKB and his Ultimate is a team-saver.

Great anti-armour synergy. Works incredibly well in a team, especially with Stygian Desolator and Assault Cuirass.

Worst Enemies:

Heroes with some sort of ability that can go through your BKB. Be very careful in team battles when you see those guys around. With Treant Protector, however, you can actually wait till he casts his Ultimate, and if you then activate your BKB, you will no longer be disabled. Make sure you get the order right! Wait for Treant’s Ultimate, then BKB! (Manta Style works too)

Insanely fast pushers who can easily push back that massive creep wave you’ve just created/sent. Tinker is particularly annoying as he can push all three lanes at the same time and his Rearm can be very annoying when he starts perma-hexing you. Try ganking Tinker as often as possible and farm that BKB ASAP.

Remember: I haven’t listed every single hero from each category here. I’ve listed the ones I felt were the MOST dangerous to fight against (or the most helpful on my team).

I remembered when I was first introduced to DotA three years ago (version 6.48), and I’ll be honest with you guys, the first time I played it, I thought it was the most boring game on the planet and I thought I would never even touch it again. I was wrong. DotA became quite an important part in my life and I’ve played countless games of pubs and numerous Inhouse games. Clan Wars never really became a part of me but I’ve watched countless professional replays and I understand how professionals play DotA and how they are different from us, the amateur DotA community.

Nevermore the Shadow Fiend is one of the most unique heroes in DotA, not only in terms of abilities but also in terms of looks, because I rank him as one of the coolest looking heroes out there (okay, maybe Terrorblade looks just that tad bit better) thanks to his beautiful ‘tan’ and his gangster walk. Most importantly, however, Nevermore is incredibly versatile as a hero. Not only is he an excellent ganker, but he also excels as a pusher, has lots of AoE and DPS and can step up as a Carry should the need arise. He’s also incredibly fun to play, which means Nevermore is one of the most often seen heroes in DotA videos and various montages.

It is important, from my personal experience, to never over-farm with Nevermore. He can’t beat Phantom Assassin. He can’t beat Drow Ranger. In fact, he can’t even beat Sven. But dealing raw damage isn’t what Nevermore is BEST at. Nevermore can deal a huge amount of AoE damage and that’s what makes or breaks those mid-game team battles. Make sure you get those razes right, get your Ulti out in time, and farm that BKB ASAP. Trust me, that’s how it works. Please, don't overfarm with him. I see this A LOT in some replays. Don't do it.

This is my tribute to Nevermore the Shadow Fiend. Play your BEST in every single game. Never rage-quit. Never blame it on your teammates. Practice makes perfect. And seriously, it’s just a game. Farming for 60 minutes is never fun.


And be devious with Nevermore! Be different! And trust me, it will be worth your while.

THE END