Template:Tabs Necrophos
Gameplay
| Playstyle | |
|---|---|
| Necrophos is a highly survivable intelligence hero whose power scale with how long he survives in a fight and eventually how long the game becomes due to his capability of taking out crucial targets and pro-longing their death with his ultimate Reaper's Scythe. Despite having a heal in his kit, Necrophos is not supportive by nature and should not be used as one as for a support, healing is all he can contribute and he is not that good at it. | |
| Pros | Cons |
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Durable Caster
Necrophos is most effective when he stands in the middle of a fight, thus, in the front line. In early game, Death Pulse can turn small skirmishes in Necrophos's team favor as it bolster his allies while wither his enemies away. Later, when Mekansm is obtained, Necrophos can effectively swing a losing fight back to his favor immediately combining Death Pulse with Mekansm for massive AoE healing. Due to Death Pulse low cooldown and how quickly Heartstopper Aura can tick away affected enemies' health, Necrophos can slowly and eventually shift the balance of health between his team and the opponents to his side, take away an important member of his enemies' team with Reaper's Scythe and win the fight. Despite being a front-line caster, Necrophos should never be the center of attention as he is naturally squishy and can only out survived his opponents when a fight is dragged long enough for him to take advantage of the weakened enemies.
Mekansm is crucial for this build as it provide the much needed survivability for Necrophos. The earlier you get Mekansm, the better.
A Blink Dagger or Force Staff can be obtained to cover Necrophos weak mobility and allow him to quickly position himself after his team initiation or to escape a losing fight.
Should Necrophos be noticed and frequently focused in teamfight, consider to get Blade Mail and/or Lotus Orb to temporally divert his enemies' attention.
It is better to get armor/resistance items like Pipe of Insight or Shiva's Guard over flat HP bonuses like Heart of Tarrasque due to how Effective HP work with healing.
Aghanim's Scepter may be considered for a shorter cooldown and often useage during a teamfight.
Durable Caster style is effective for early 4-5 man pushing, provided that Mekansm is obtained early enough.
Being a Durable Caster is standard for Necrophos and should be used as the first step of playing Necrophos before considering other styles.
Heavy Nuker
With Reaper's Scythe Necrophos can nuke an important target into smithereens immediately when a fight begin with the help of Death Pulse, Dagon and/or Ethereal Blade. When Necrophos successfully pulls off a combo off Reaper's Scythe > Ethereal Blade > Dagon > Death Pulse (note: Reaper's Scythe has 1.5 second delay before damaging the target, thus, all abilities cast after Reaper's Scythe must be fit within this time window) he can take out most heroes. Heavy Nuker Necrophos is very aggressive but also extremely squishy as his only way to survive is to make use of Death Pulse by killing his opponents as fast as he can.
Blink Dagger and/or Force Staff must be obtained to cover Necrophos weak mobility and allow him to position himself properly to surprise and pick off important target, shadowblade and silveredge is possible for escape and works well with radiance
A Dagon and/or Ethereal Blade are core for this playstyle as Necrophos cannot effectively burst a target by himself without any help.
Aghanim's Scepter must be considered for this build, more than Durable Caster style as it expands the 1 hit KO threshold (from 40% health to 47% without any other resistance items).
Refresher Orb is also crucial as double Reaper's Scythe with Aghanim's Scepter can single handedly win a game by taking out 2 important targets like carry or semi-carry or just to pick off an important core for a final push.
Ability Builds
| Generic Necrophos | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 18 | ||||||||
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Talents
| Hero Talents | ||
|---|---|---|
| -2.5s Death Pulse Cooldown | 25 | +0.5% Heartstopper Aura Damage |
| +25% Heartstopper Regen Reduction | 20 | +15% Ghost Shroud Self Restoration Amp |
| +40 Death Pulse Heal | 15 | +20% Ghost Shroud Movement Slow |
| +2s Heartstopper Aura Stack Duration | 10 | +100 Reaper's Scythe Cast Range |
Tips & Tactics
General
- Necrophos is countered in lane by any hero with high health regeneration, such as Dragon Knight and Quas-focused Invoker, or a hero with lifesteal capabilities; because he relies on inflicting constant, gradual damage with Death Pulse and Heartstopper Aura. Heroes with these attributes will resist this in lane against Necrophos, keeping high enough health to prevent death by Reaper's Scythe.
- Refresher Orb combined with an Aghanim's Scepter will greatly increase your chance at winning the match if it reaches the late game. If you manage to kill 2 enemy heroes in succession, the sheer duration of their respawn time might be enough to decide the match, more so if the victims are key heroes in their lineup.
- Necrophos can very easily be built as a tank and in most circumstances should be; you may gear for strength (he does not need excessive intelligence as his basic attacks are not too useful, and Death Pulse refunds mana for each kill he gets). The reason he is usually built as a tank is because he needs to stay alive in violent encounters to heal his allies (a good enemy team will focus him first), and also because the longer he is alive for, the more damage his aura will do and the better chance he has of landing a crucial Reaper's Scythe.
- Although it may be wise to build some mana pool increasing items such as Arcane Boots, Point Booster or other Intelligence items may do so anyway; because if Necrophos has used all his abilities and failed to get a kill, he would wind up and be unable to cast any more of his spells. Moreover, if his auto attack is not too great, getting last hits to regenerate some mana can be problematic.
- Utility items, such as Mekansm, Pipe of Insight and Guardian Greaves are more useful for Necrophos, because he can inflict constant damage with Heartstopper Aura simply by avoiding death and synergizes with his Death Pulse to keep his team alive. In that sense, Crimson Guard is also a viable luxury item for Utility Necrophos as it will greatly increase his durability while also providing a useful team ability.
- Radiance is a viable item for Necrophos because of his durability. This also synergizes well with Heartstopper Aura making prolonged team-fights a dangerous prospect for the enemy team.
- Necrophos is effective against invisible heroes that tend to stalk their prey as his Heartstopper Aura does damage while they are in stealth, his Death Pulse hits invisible units, and his Reaper's Scythe will prevent them from escaping via invisibility before they die. He is also very good against heroes with abilities that deplete their own health such as Pudge, Slark, and Centaur Warrunner ( Huskar is an exception since his Berserker's Blood will almost always prevent you from killing him with Reaper's Scythe), but Necrophos should first be durable enough to take on these kinds of risk/reward heroes.
- Necrophos' role is notoriously debated; while his abilities appear supportive at their core, his Reaper's Scythe is a tool used to secure kills only for himself (much like Axe's Culling Blade). This is atypical for a standard support hero, because supports usually attempt to confer gold and experience to the team's carry. The duplicity of his carry/support role stems from his unique stance in encounters; his kit is largely supportive until an enemy hero grows weak, at which point Necrophos has the capacity to kill said enemy himself. He is best viewed as a utility focused semi-carry, rather than a full-fledged support hero.
- Dagon is more useful on Necrophos than other heroes because it not only deals burst damage, but also allows you to quickly deal more damage from your ultimate.
- Ethereal Blade can be used in conjunction with Reaper's Scythe and Death Pulse to deal significantly more damage. If you are also in a possession of a high level Dagon, a quick Reaper's Scythe to Ether Blast to Energy Burst combo can decimate full health enemy heroes with total health points lower than 2000, assuming they have the standard 25% magic resistance.
- It is worth noting that Ether Blast temporarily increases the magical damage dealt per missing health from the standard 0.4/0.6/0.9 to 0.56/0.84/1.26, thus also increases the instant-kill threshold.
- Assuming a level 5 Energy Burst and a level 3 Reaper's Scythe with an Aghanim's Scepter is used against an enemy with 25% magic resistance while being ethereal, you will deal 840 damage from Dagon and 1058.4 damage from Reaper's Scythe, to a total of 1898.4 damage (not including damage from Ether Blast and Reaper's Scythe damage due to it). If the match reaches the late-game, you still can burst down a full health non-magic-immune enemy carry with standard magic resistance during teamfights, potentially turning it into your team's favor.
- Octarine Core is a viable item if you plan to do an aggressive approach as your Death Pulse will heal Necrophos for 130 + 50 per hero hit and reduce its cooldown to 3.75 seconds. If you also manage to kill an enemy with Reaper's Scythe, the massive damage coupled with the heal from Death Pulse will in some cases be enough to heal Necrophos from critically low health to full health. However, it is advised that you build a Bloodstone too because the Octarine Core will increase your mana consumption and is a lot less effective than Bloodstone at restoring mana.
Abilities
Death Pulse
- As Necrophos's survivability heavily relies on his ability to spam Death Pulse you need to be wary of heroes with silence such as Drow Ranger, Silencer and Death Prophet. Ancient Apparition can also greatly cripple you with Ice Blast as this ability prevents health from regenerating for an extended period of time.
- With a Bloodstone, he can keep the pressure up at the enemy lanes and prevent the enemy team from farming. If you can get it early enough, you can choose to build it before Mekansm and/or Pipe of Insight because it will drastically improve your survivability and so that you can store enough charges.
- The passive portion of the ability applies to and is triggered by any kills made by Necrophos. The killing blow does not need to be with Death Pulse specifically.
Ghost Shroud
- Ghost Shroud applies an Ethereal status, disarming and rendering Necrophos unable to perform basic attacks.
- Spells and abilities that apply a similar Ethereal status does not multiplicatively stack with one another, and only the strongest spell-resistance reducing modifier is applied.
- Ghost Shroud shields you entirely from physical damage, but increases your vulnerability to magical damage. Be wary of the circumstances before casting this spell.
- Any form of health and mana recovery is amplified, so it works with the health and mana restoration of spells like Shadow Wave and items like Arcane Boots.
- Ghost Shroud only amplifies any health and mana restoration that Necrophos receives from all sources and does not actually amplify the health and mana restoration of his other spells.
- This means that while under the effects of Ghost Shroud, Death Pulse will have a greater healing effect upon Necrophos, but Death pulse itself is not amplified and will not heal allies for a greater amount than stated in the spell description.
- Ghost Shroud only amplifies any health and mana restoration that Necrophos receives from all sources and does not actually amplify the health and mana restoration of his other spells.
- Ghost Shroud applies an area move speed slow centred around Necrophos, similar to Degen Aura, making it a good skill to chase down heroes or to impede their own chasing efforts upon you or your allies.
- Ghost Shroud is immediately dispelled when Necrophos is rendered spell immune, so it cannot be used in conjunction with Repel or Black King Bar.
- Items and spells can be used and activated without causing Ghost Shroud to be dispelled (with the exception of Black King Bar).
Heartstopper Aura
- Heartstopper Aura in the early game allows Necrophos to harass enemy heroes by simply standing near them. Its massive radius will usually cause heroes to run out of their early game regeneration items quite fast.
- Note however that the aura affects enemy creeps, and thus putting points in it will push the lane. Should you lane with a farm-dependent carry, it is unwise to push as it makes their farm more difficult and leaves both of you more vulnerable to ganks. Putting one or at the most two points in it is appropriate for early game.
- If you're against a defensive tri-lane or playing as an Offlaner and the enemies in the lane lack disables, maxing Heartstopper Aura first is a viable option if the enemy chooses to play passively. The massive degeneration will make it hard for the enemy to farm and in some cases they might ignore Necrophos until it is too late and their health is low enough for a kill with Reaper's Scythe or make them vulnerable to a gank. The same can be said if you are in a defensive trilane and the enemy has a tanky offlaner.
- Don't neglect to use basic attacks to harass the enemy during laning phase. Heartstopper Aura already negates their regeneration or at least hinder it significantly if they bought/rushed health regen items like Ring of Regen and Ring of Health in anticipation. Even attacking them once in a while goes a long way because they can't readily recuperate the loss of health and will eventually force them to use their consumables or retreat.
- If you are going for an early push strategy, an early Headdress in conjunction with your aura will work wonders and will make the lane a battle of attrition that they will lose from either using too much regen items or being too afraid to last hit. Unless of course, they have a naturally high health regen.
- Due to the large range of Heartstopper Aura, heroes that practice Armlet of Mordiggian toggling will be forced to stop toggling below 450 health at teamfights as turning off Unholy Strength will reduce their health to 1 and will die from Heartstopper Aura immediately after. If you are also a support and is not hard pressed to last hit, the range will also allow you to hide in trees to harass the enemy heroes in the lane without them knowing.
Reaper's Scythe
- At level 3, Reaper's Scythe will kill targets at 40% or less health. Remember to factor in magic resistance from items and abilities before you attempt to execute an enemy Hero with it.
- The Reaper's Scythe instant-kill health threshold, with the base 25% magic resist factored in, can be calculated by multiplying the enemy max health with the constants: 3/13, 9/29, or 27/67 for each respective level of the ultimate.
- The philosophy behind Reaper's Scythe is that (owing to Death Pulse) it will return its mana expenditure if you secure a kill.
- Due to the damage mechanics of the spell, many player would preferably want to secure a kill in order to recoup the mana spent in casting it. However, there are several situations in which this ability should be used purely for its stun, such as interrupting channeled ultimates (such as those belonging to Pudge or Enigma) or preventing an enemy hero from escaping.
- Take note that the stun goes through magic immunity, although the damage will not.
- Due to the damage mechanics of the spell, many player would preferably want to secure a kill in order to recoup the mana spent in casting it. However, there are several situations in which this ability should be used purely for its stun, such as interrupting channeled ultimates (such as those belonging to Pudge or Enigma) or preventing an enemy hero from escaping.
- Keep in mind that Reaper's Scythe is not a channeling ability, meaning you can move the moment you have cast it. As such, it can be used to escape ganks and chases.
- Because you can cast during the stun, you can use it to initiate on an enemy hero to keep them from escaping or using Black King Bar assuming you can cause enough damage in 1.5 seconds. You can instant-kill with this tactic if you are paired with a high burst damage hero such as Huskar or Lina or Lion, or if you are in possession of a high level Dagon and an Ethereal Blade.
- Remember that this ultimate adds additional time to its victim's respawn timer In later stages of the game this can prove very important in removing key enemy heroes from the fight for a very long time.
- If the situation permits, you should focus on using Reaper's Scythe only on the same enemy (preferably the carry) throughout the match. The extension of the respawn time will add up and will cause a significant reduction to the enemy's farm. To put it into perspective, if you manage to kill the same enemy hero twice, it will already make their farm a minute late more than usual if killed by anybody else. This will cause heroes who depend on snowballing early like Pudge to become almost useless in mid to late game as their chance to snowball will be greatly reduced, or make the enemy carry under-prepared to tackle your team's carry hero.
Items
Starting items:
- Iron Branches give nice, cheap bonuses and can be used to build a Magic Wand or a Mekansm later.
- Clarity to keep being able to cast Death Pulse when needed.
- Mantle of Intelligence gives a little boost to Necrophos' mana pool.
- Healing Salve and a set of Tangos make you much more durable in lane. Use these items rather than your Death Pulse if you wish to heal yourself without wasting mana and pushing the lane.
Early game:
- Magic Stick is bought because of the regeneration it provides against enemies who spam their spells. It's also used to make a Magic Wand.
- Boots of Speed make you go faster and can be upgraded.
- Headdress gives more attributes and more health regeneration. It's used to make a Mekansm.
Core items:
- Magic Wand provides you with attributes and a useful ability to regenerate mana and health.
- Power Treads give you more durability if left on Strength, or more mana if switched to Intelligence. The attack speed makes it easier for you to weaken an enemy, and then kill him with Reaper's Scythe.
- Aghanim's Scepter reduces the cooldown of Reaper's Scythe dramatically, while giving nice attributes, health, and mana.
- Point Booster gives you some very cost and slot-effective health and mana. It can then be left as a stand-alone item (a "casual" point booster) or be used to build an Aghanim's Scepter or a Soul Booster, which can then be built into either a Bloodstone or an Octarine Core.
- Town Portal Scroll is a casual purchasable for every hero, whether to escape a gank or assist in one.
- Blink Dagger solve his mobility problem and will allow you to hide before entering teamfights as to not be initiated on by the other team since Necrophos would probably be the first target because of his sustain and proper positioning could make the difference between saving one of your team mates or being able to cast Reaper's Scythe on the enemy carry. It will also allow you to play more aggressively and give you a proper escape mechanism instead of just walking away.
Situational items:
- Force Staff may be a better alternative, as it gives Intelligence (therefore, more mana), a little bit more regeneration to help with sustaining yourself, and gives a quick method of movement even while under attack. Other uses also involve using it on allies to save them, or on ill-positioned enemies to perhaps push them closer to your team (or yourself) to be focused on.
- Rod of Atos is also highly viable for Necrophos. It gives stats that Necrophos very much needs: Health, Intelligence, and a long range slow with a short cooldown, allowing you and your team to catch up and let you cast your Reaper's Scythe, or make the hero stay within Heartstopper Aura longer which all can possibly secure you a kill. The active also can be used for escape or even buy enough time for your other abilities to be off cooldown or your teammate to arrive.
- Blade Mail can be a wise choice if Necrophos already has other items to make him more lasting in teamfights. It gives a little boost of Intelligence, more Armor to add to your durability, and since Necrophos might usually need to be in the middle of everything, the active can dissuade enemies from focusing you down, giving them the risk of putting themselves in range for your ultimate.
- Mekansm grants more attributes, more armor, and more health regeneration, making you harder to kill. Its active ability is useful both for supporting and to save yourself from danger.
- Guardian Greaves would be the better choice for supporting your team since you would have already built a Mekansm. Along with Death Pulse, keeping your team alive will be considerably easier as well as providing mana. Consider building Arcane Boots instead of Power Treads if you are planning to build this.
- Bloodstone makes you tankier and gives much more mana, making you almost unkillable and able to spam your Death Pulse if you stay behind your allies, thanks to the regeneration it provides.
- Scythe of Vyse gives good attributes and mana regeneration. Its disable makes it easier to kill a powerful carry or an annoying support/initiator.
- Shiva's Guard is a good item for teamfights: the armor and the aura it provides will discourage the enemy carry from attacking you, while its active ability places a slowing debuff on enemies, so that you'll be able to chase them and finish them off more easily.
- Pipe of Insight gives much more health regeneration and increases your magic resistance. Its ability is useful if the enemy team has a great initiator: with this item you'll be able to partially counter him.
- Heart of Tarrasque makes you a lot more tanky, increasing your health by 1150 health. A very important item to obtain if the enemy has highly mobile heroes who also deal high damage, as it will allow you to sustain their attacks for longer giving you a better chance of escaping.
- Radiance synergizes well with Heartstopper Aura. Acquiring this will make your presence very strong during teamfights and help keep your lanes clear of enemy creeps due to the combined pure and magic damage. The 17% miss debuff is also a nice compliment to your already dangerous being.
- Boots of Travel can be bought to make you faster and able to push the lanes more effectively, thanks to your Death Pulse.
- Octarine Core lowers the cooldown of Reaper's Scythe, allowing for more frequent kills and more downtime for the enemy team. In conjunction with Ghost Shroud when activated, it provides a potentially large heal for the kills with Reaper's Scythe and makes Death's Pulse's healing more effective, immensely increasing Necrophos' longevity. If purchased with Radiance, you can even heal every second.
- Lotus Orb should be picked up if Necrophos finds himself to be a high priority target for the enemy. Since Necrophos is commonly built to be durable, he will be frequently seen in the front lines, thus letting Lotus Orb be used to its full potential.
