Shadow Fiend
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Nevermore the Shadow Fiend is a ranged agility Hero possessing abilities that inflict superb burst damage from varying distances. Whether near or far, Shadow Fiend is able to release incredible offensive power, both physical and magical. Shadow Fiend's true power comes from the souls he takes, thus, he is more dangerous every time he kills. With enough souls, he can release all of the captured souls in a devastating burst, dealing more damage to enemies that are closer to him. Shadow Fiend is a carry who is powerful at all stages of the game, a trait most carries don't share. He can harass and conquer early game, gank unsuspecting Heroes during the mid stages, and has huge right-click potential lategame thanks to his passives, although his active abilities scale off by the end-game.
Bio
Nevermore, the Shadow FiendGameplay
Shadow Fiend is a carry hero who has one of the most massive right clicking potentials in the entire game, although his active abilities will require good positioning, timing and most importantly, practice to maintain their power through the game. As an agility carry, and a nuker, Shadow Fiend can dish out truly frightening amounts of damage consistently, thanks to the fact that, unlike other extremely high damage agility carries like Phantom Assassin, none of Shadow Fiend's abilities depend on luck.
His signature ability, Shadowraze, gives Shadow Fiend the ability to bomb an area of the ground, dealing damage to all units within range, the range potential being up close, middling distance or longer distance; Technically, Shadowraze is in fact 3 abilities in one, as all three distances of it can be used individually without needing to wait for any of the other options to cooldown first - This can make annihilating fragile heroes in the early and mid game very easy if the positioning and timing is correct, while it also allows him to be one of the best creep killers in the game, making him excell in pushes, as well as farming with large snowballing potential. With higher levels (Preferrably whenever Shadowraze is maximized), he can act as a solid jungler as well.
His second ability, Necromastery, is the ability that sets his right clicking prowess into motion - Allowing him to absorb the souls of any enemy he last hits (Including Heroes, in which case he will receive multiple souls) and receive bonus damage (+2 for each soul) for it, being able to hold up to 36 souls. This ability synergizes with his ultimate, Requiem of Souls, which will release all his souls into a wave of energy. He does not, however, lose the souls he has gained by activating it; He will only lose souls by dying, at which occasions he will automatically do a half powered Requiem, allowing to give one last attack, potentially getting revenge on the enemy as soon as he dies. Requiem of Souls requires very good positioning to work efficiently, as the waves of energy will quickly spread out along with their damage, making the attack very situational, benefiting immensely from stuns provided by your teammates or items that allow you to sneakily or quickly put yourself in appropriate positions such as a Blink Dagger and Shadow Blade. If used appropriately however, Requiem of Souls is one of the single most damaging attacks in the entire game, being able to deal up to 2880(2160 after reductions with standard 25% Magic resistance) points of damage, more than enough to immediately kill the vast majority of heroes even at their highest level unless they have a lot of built in strength coupled with health/strength busting items. To make it even more dangerous, is that all units touched by the souls will receive a 5 second long 25% reduction to movement speed and 50% reduction to attack damage, an aspect of it that goes through spell immunity.
His final skill, Presence of the Dark Lord, makes his right-clicking potential even larger, providing a debuff to near enemies by reducing their armor, which is stackable with other armor debuffs. This also means he is a great companion for any physical hero to team up with, as his mere presence will off-handedly increase their power.
Shadow Fiend is very fragile through the early stages of the game, he has average movement speed and no innate escape mechanism whatsoever, making him a very easy target for ganks, which means that map awareness and the ability to know when to retreat or play conservatively is essential for survival, and is highly recommended to stick with teammates often to reduce the chances of being ganked. However, Shadow Fiend is also a very versatile hero who benefits greatly from a wide variety of items, so with a good enough item build, he can become a decent solo, although caution and especially map awareness are still advised.
Shadow Fiend is a semi-hard carry - Meaning he can obtain substantial power from his abilities, but ultimately it will be the items that will make him a force to be reckoned with - Without strong items and his necromastery he has poor right-click power, but he can very easily flip this by collecting souls and obtaining items that increase both his attack speed and damage. In addition to this, being a ranged hero, items such as the Eye of Skadi can create escape mechanisms for him by allowing to slow enemies from a distance and flee to safety if need be, or simply make it easier to catch up to fleeing heroes, the former possibility of which in turn means slow melee heroes with no ranged abilities will have a very difficult time with him. Additionally, lifestealing can be bought and used along items that increase his attack speed, granting potentially very strong survivality. All In all, Shadow Fiend is a character that is easy to learn, but difficult to master - His innate survivability is low, and survivability is crucial to maintain his power to the fullest without needing constant farm, but on the hands of the right players, he will easily be among the most impacting heroes in whatever game he is in.
Abilities
- All three Shadowraze spells are always on the same level. Leveling one of them automatically levels the others aswell.
- Shadowraze (near) blasts a 250 radius area 200 range infront of Nevermore upon cast.
- This means that it can hit units up to 50 range behind Shadow Fiend, and up to 450 range infront of him.
- All three razes together can deal up to 300/525/750/975 damage to a single unit (before reductions), if all of them hit.
- All three Shadowraze spells are always on the same level. Leveling one of them automatically levels the others aswell.
- Shadowraze (medium) blasts a 250 radius area 450 range infront of Nevermore upon cast.
- This means that it can hit units from 200 to 700 range infront of Shadow Fiend.
- All three razes together can deal up to 300/525/750/975 damage to a single unit (before reductions), if all of them hit.
- All three Shadowraze spells are always on the same level. Leveling one of them automatically levels the others aswell.
- Shadowraze (far) blasts a 250 radius area 700 range infront of Nevermore upon cast.
- This means that it can hit units from 450 to 950 range infront of Shadow Fiend.
- All three razes together can deal up to 300/525/750/975 damage to a single unit (before reductions), if all of them hit.
DNN/A
Self
- Can get souls from every unit, including buildings, wards and allies. The only exception here are Power Cogs.
- Despite the visual effects, Shadow Fiend instantly gains the soul and thus the damage of killed units.
- The number of current souls is visibile on the status buff icon.
- If Shadow Fiend has an odd number of souls upon death, the number of lost souls is rounded down (e.g. at 11 souls, he would lose 5.5 -> 5 on death).
- This means that he never can lose all his souls. He still keeps 1 soul, even when dying while only having 1 soul.
- The more souls Shadow Fiend has, the more red particles fly around his chest area.
- The maximus possible amount of souls with each level of Necromastery provides 30/44/58/72 bonus damage.
FPN/A
Enemies
- The armor reduction debuff lingers for 0.5 seconds after getting out of range.
- Has no effect on enemies that have no vision of Shadow Fiend.
- The damaging lines travel at a speed of 700.
- Shadow Fiend is phased while casting this ability.
- The damage is entirely based on the amount of souls gathered with Necromastery. Each 2 souls create 1 damaging line.
- If an odd number of souls are gathered, the number gets rounded down to the next even number.
- The area of every single damaging line is shaped like a cone.
- Damaging lines can hit units up to 1375/1425/1475 range away (975 + 400/1000 + 425/1025 + 450).
- The distance between each damaging line is always even. One line is always released towards east and the other lines adapt accordingly.
- So the distance between the lines on each amount of lines is:
- 2 lines: 180°, 3 lines: 120°, 4 lines: 90°, 5 lines: 72°, 6 lines: 60°, 7 lines: 51.43°, 8 lines: 45°, 9 lines: 40°, 10 lines: 36°,
- 11 lines: 32.73°, 12 lines: 30°, 13 lines: 27.69°, 14 lines: 25.71°, 15 lines: 24°, 16 lines: 22.5°, 17 lines: 21.18°, 18 lines: 20°
- Reduces movement speed and attack damage of all enemy units hit by the damaging lines of Requiem of Souls.
- Requiem of Souls can deal up to 1440/2160/2880 damage to a single unit (before reductions), if all 18 lines hit.
- Only reduces base damage and that given by the primary attribute of the units. Raw bonus damage is not reduced.
- Upon death, Requiem of Souls is cast automatically, however, this happens after 50% of the souls of Necromastery are lost.
- If Shadow Fiend dies while holding the Aegis of the Immortal Requiem of Souls is not cast and no souls are lost.
- This means the number of lines of this passive cast are based on the remaining number of souls after the death, resulting in max 9 possible lines.
- This happens instantly upon his death, does not put Requiem of Souls on cooldown, and works if it already is on cooldown.
- If Shadow Fiend had 1 soul left upon death, it still releases 1 line, despite requiring souls when normally cast.
Recommended Items
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Equipment
Shadow Fiend/equipment/ru
Tips
- While laning, try to use Shadowraze to harass your opponent as well as kill creeps.
- Use Shadowraze early if you're having trouble building souls; 100 damage from level 1 Shadowraze is higher than the 35-41 base attack damage you start with.
- Shadowraze and Necromastery should be maxed before leveling Requiem of Souls, as the first one is your main nuke and Requiem doesn't do much damage without full souls.
- Remember that Necromastery receives souls from all kills, including denies.
- Skipping Slippers of Agility to instead get Clarity potions allows you to last hit using Shadowraze until you have a decent amount of right-click damage.
- Wraith Band can be replaced with a Bracer for more health if needed, you can also upgrade it to a Drum of Endurance for added movement speed and attack speed and +9 to all of your attributes.
- Choosing between Blink Dagger and Shadow Blade for the use of your ultimate comes down to personal preference. The mobility and positioning that Blink Dagger is intantaneous and overall superior, but it can't be used to position in the middle of a teamfight to cast Requiem of Souls reliably as it does not grant any protection to disables, meaning the player will still require some kind of spell protection before attempting to use it in a crowded fight. Shadow Blade's initiation is generally "safer" and with the unit walking that it provides, the player could potentially "insta gib" a hero on the enemy team while also affecting all the other ones, making a superb initiation, but the method is completely countered by True Sight.
- In team fights, after you get Blink Dagger, let someone else initiate, blink in and cast Requiem of Souls when the opposing team is already concentrated in a small area.
- Easy jungle creeps take but a few Shadowrazes to kill and offer an easy way to boost Necromastery in a tough mid lane or after a death. If you become physically weak and cannot risk taking any more damage in the laning phase, you may consider pushing the lane out far enough to let you quickly visit the jungle.
- Use Shadowraze to chase melee heroes when they are running in a straight line.
- At very close ranges, Requiem of Souls can deal massive damage to non-magic immune targets. However, the Slow and damage reduction of the spell both penetrate magic immunity, and are the same at all levels. Unless you really need to kill someone very quickly, it is best to cast Requiem of Souls so that it will hit all enemies instead of doing large damage to just a few.
- Lifesteal items like Helm of the Dominator and Satanic are very effective on Shadow Fiend, as his large amount of DPS provides suitably large amount of health, granting him much greater survivability in the battlefield.
- Survivability is essential for Shadow's power early on in the game - Play conservatively and take few risks until Shadow has a decent health pool and his DPS has increased considerably, you'll be all the better for it in the long run.
Trivia
- Shadow Fiend's alternate/fun name in DotA was "YaphetS", a tribute to a professional DotA player who skillfully used Nevermore.
- Voice responses between Shadow Fiend, Shadow Demon and Doom suggest that he was once a minion or slave of the former. This is supported by Shadow Demon's lore stating that Doom and Shadow Fiend had joined forces against him.
- The name "Nevermore" likely refers to the poem "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe. This is also referenced in his bio.
- The voice response ▶️ "Never say Nevermore..." is in reference to the James Bond movie "Never say never again".
- Apart for popular demand by fans, Shadow Fiend's model rework may have also been done to adhere to certain countries' censorship laws, namely the Chinese client.
Update History
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Balance Changelog
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Replaced abilities
RD- This ability was replaced by Requiem of Souls in the 6.09 gameplay patch.
- Upon learning, 6 fire balls are summoned instantly around Shadow Fiend, forming a 100 radius circle. The distance between the balls are even.
- The balls spin around Shadow Fiend counter-clock wise and complete a revolution every 2 seconds regardless of their distance to Shadow Fiend.
- This means their angular velocity is constant, meaning that the balls move faster when further away from Shadow Fiend.
- Does not interrupt Shadow Fiend's channeling spells upon toggling.
- When toggling on, the balls start moving away from Shadow Fiend, up to 700 range away, and then start returning to him to a minimum of 100 range.
- This repeats until the ability is toggled off, or when Shadow Fiend dies.
- The balls move at a constant speed of 140, away and towards Shadow Fiend. It takes 5 seconds for them to reach max/min distance.
- Every enemy unit who comes within 100 range of a ball gets damaged. The damage intervals are twice as long on heroes as they are on non-heroes.
- However, the damage per instance is same. This means it effectively deals twice as much damage to non-heroes.
- The damage radius of every orb fully stack, meaning if a unit is within range of for example 3 orbs, it will take damage from 3 orbs.
- Upon death, the balls disappear until respawning. However, they do not disappear when being revived by an Aegis of the Immortal.
- Though illusions have fully functional Dark Flames, Shadow Fiend was disallowed to own a Manta Style (the Illusion Rune did not exist back then).
FPN/A
Enemies
- This ability got reworked into the current Presence of the Dark Lord in the 6.06 gameplay patch.
- The debuff lingers for 2-4 seconds.
Gallery
New Model
Old Model (Before September 25, 2014)
Old Low Violence Model
See also
- Shadow Fiend responses
- Shadow Fiend sounds
References
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