Queen of Pain

Queen of Pain
Movement speed	295
Turn rate	0.5
Vision range	1800/800
Attack range	550
Projectile speed	1500
Attack animation	0.56+0.41
Base attack time	1.5
Magic resistance	25%
Collision size	24
Legs	2

Hero

Strategy

Counters

Equipment

Gear

Responses

Sounds

Lore

Old Abilities

Changelogs

Akasha the Queen of Pain is a ranged intelligence hero who uses her abilities to close in and deal huge area damage to the enemy. She is typically played in the middle lane as a ganker and semi-carry, with her ability to appear in battle and deal damage in quick succession, as well as hunt down fleeing heroes with ease. Her Blink ability is the lynchpin of her skill set, allowing her to enter and leave fights at her whim. Once in position to attack, Akasha can unleash her Scream of Pain and Sonic Wave, able to devastate an entire team at once. Chasing down straggling prey is another of her fortes, with Shadow Strike crippling their ability to escape. Akasha is very adept at getting kills early in the game, and transitions very well into a semi-carry if she acquires the proper items.

Bio[edit]

Akasha, the Queen of Pain
Play "They say pain is all in the mind, but they're wrong: It's all in my hands."
Role:	Carry / Nuker / Escape
Lore:	The Ecclesiast-King of Elze nursed a desire for pain — forbidden pain. In a less prominent political figure, such desires might be considered unwise, but in a monarch of his stature, to satisfy such thirsts would have threatened the virtue of the Divine Throne itself. Therefore he turned to his dungeon full of demonologists, promising freedom to whoever could summon a personal succubus of torment and bind it entirely to his service. The creature who arrived, Akasha by name, visited upon him such exquisite torments that he named her his Secret Queen, and he began to spend all his spare moments submitting to her clever torments—eventually abdicating all his responsibilities in his pursuit of the painful pleasures that only she could bring. Queen of Pain could bring him to the brink of death, but she was rune-bound to keep him alive. At last the King's neglect of state brought on an uprising. He was dragged from his chamber and hurled from the Tower of Invocations, and at the moment of death, Queen of Pain was let loose into the world, freed from servitude—freed to visit her sufferings on anyone she deigned to notice.
Voice:	Linda K. Morris (Responses)

Abilities[edit]

Shadow Strike

Play

Ability
Target Unit / Target Area

Affects
Enemies

Damage
Magical

Hurls a poisoned dagger which deals large initial damage, and then deals damage over time. The poisoned unit has its movement speed slowed for 15 seconds. An instance of damage is dealt every 3 seconds.

Cast Animation: +

Cast Range: 450/500/550/600

Radius: 0 (

550)

Initial Damage: 50/75/100/125

Number of Instances: 5

Damage per Instance: 30/45/60/75

Move Speed Slow: 20%/30%/40%/50%

Duration: 15

16/12/8/4 (

14.08/10.56/7.04/3.52)

110

Slow persists and attempts to deal damage if debuff was placed before spell immunity and when not dispelled.

Blocked upon impact, only when primary target.

Modifiers

Shadow Strike: Dispellable with any dispel.

Akasha's envenomed dagger allows her to delight in the drawn out suffering of her victims.

Notes:

The dagger travels at a speed of 900 and can be disjointed.

The slow decreases in 1 second intervals. This is how much Shadow Strike slows on each level at each second:
- Level 1: 20.0% / 16.3% / 13.1% / 10.3% / 8.1% / 6.2% / 4.7% / 3.5% / 2.5% / 1.8% / 1.3% / 0.9% / 0.6% / 0.4% / 0.3%
- Level 2: 30.0% / 24.5% / 19.6% / 15.5% / 12.1% / 9.3% / 7.0% / 5.2% / 3.8% / 2.8% / 2.0% / 1.4% / 1.0% / 0.6% / 0.4%
- Level 3: 40.0% / 32.6% / 26.2% / 20.7% / 16.1% / 12.4% / 9.3% / 7.0% / 5.1% / 3.7% / 2.6% / 1.8% / 1.3% / 0.9% / 0.6%
- Level 4: 50.0% / 40.8% / 32.7% / 25.9% / 20.1% / 15.5% / 11.7% / 8.7% / 6.4% / 4.6% / 3.3% / 2.3% / 1.6% / 1.1% / 0.7%

A unit with less than 25% of its maximum health can be denied when it has the Shadow Strike debuff on.

Deals the initial damage upon impact and the damage over time in 3 second intervals, resulting in overall 6 damage instances.

Can deal up to 200/300/400/500 damage to the target (before reductions).

Successive casts refresh the slow and damage over time durations and deal the initial damage again.

The level 25 talent adds a 550 radius to this spell. The targeting reticule must be centered over an enemy unit.
- Upon cast, Queen of Pain sends daggers towards every enemy within the radius.
- These behave just like a regular cast, and can be disjointed normally.
- Also targets units inside the fog of war and invisible units. However, invisible targets instantly disjoint it.

Blink

Play

Ability
Target Point

Affects
Self

Short distance teleportation that allows Queen of Pain to move in and out of combat.

Cast Animation: +

Cast Range: Global

Max Blink Distance: 1300

15/12/9/6 (

13.2/10.56/7.92/5.28)

60

The Secret Queen lives up to her title, making her Pain impossible to escape.

Notes:

Disjoints projectiles upon cast.

Cannot be cast while rooted.

Does not blink for the full distance when targeting closer than the max distance.

When targeting beyond the max blink distance, Queen of Pain will blink for the max distance towards the targeted point.

Scream of Pain

Play

Ability
No Target

Affects
Enemies

Damage
Magical

The Queen of Pain lets loose a piercing scream around her, damaging nearby enemies.

Cast Animation: +

Search Radius: 475

Damage: 75/150/225/300

7 (

6.16)

110/120/130/140

The sultry voice of Akasha beckons her opponents while stealing their souls.

Notes:

Scream of Pain interrupts Queen of Pain's channeling spells upon cast.

The projectiles travel at a speed of 900 and cannot be disjointed.

Affects invisible units and units in the Fog of War.

Does not affect invulnerable or hidden units.

Sonic Wave

Play

Ability
Target Point

Affects
Enemies

Damage
Pure

Creates a gigantic wave of sound in front of Queen of Pain, dealing heavy damage to all enemy units in its wake.

Cast Animation: +

Cast Range: 700

Starting Radius: 100

Travel Distance: 900

End Radius: 450

Damage: 290/380/470 (

325/440/555)

135 (

118.8) (

40,

35.2)

250/360/500

Increases damage and decreases cooldown.

Her most exquisite of all of torments, Akasha's Sonic Wave puts her poor foes out of their misery.

Notes:

Sonic Wave travels at a speed of 900, taking 1 second to travel the full distance.

Can hit units up to 1350 range away (travel distance + end radius).

The complete area is shaped like a cone.

Can kill couriers.

Talents[edit]

Hero Talents
60% Spell Lifesteal	25	550 AoE Shadow Strike
+300 Health	20	+100 Attack Range
+90 Gold/Min	15	12% Cooldown Reduction
+10 Strength	10	+25 Damage

Notes:

The attack damage is added as bonus attack damage, and therefore does not benefit illusions.

Cooldown reduction affects abilities and items. Stacks multiplicatively with Octarine Core and additively with Arcane Rune.

Gold granted from the talent is unreliable gold.

Upgrading health increases maximum health capacity and keeps the current health percentage.

The spell lifesteal stacks additively with that of Octarine Core.

The spell lifesteal heals for 12% from non-hero units. Treats creep-heroes as creeps and does not heal off of illusions.

Recommended items[edit]

Stating Items:

Healing Salve and Tangoes for health regeneration while in lane and a Clarity which help allow Akasha to use her abilities more often to assert her lane dominance.
Purchasing a Mantle of Intelligence and a Circlet, which can later be turned into a Null Talisman, will increase her already high base damage for easier last hitting.

Early Game:

Getting a Bottle will provide her with reliable health and mana regeneration. Queen of Pain's Blink ability grants her almost incontestable rune control allowing her to easily replenish Bottle charges.
Boots of Speed give an increase in movement speed which can be very useful, especially when Blink is unavailable.
Magic Stick gives you much needed burst regen which can be used in emergency situations.
Null Talisman can be purchased to make last hitting even easier. This can be sold when not needed anymore or turned into a Dagon.

Core Items:

Magic Wand provides a nice increase to all attributes and burst regen.
Power Treads increase Akasha's attack speed and attributes allowing her to be more durable which allowing her to output sustainable damage.
Aghanim's Scepter hugely reduces Sonic Wave's cooldown time, ensuring it is always available when it is needed. It also provides a useful increase in Sonic Wave's damage.
Town Portal Scroll should always be carried to safely escape from or enter and contribute to fights.

Situational Items:

Akasha has strong burst damage and initiation speed, but lacks a good disable and can be killed easily if she blinks in carelessly. Scythe of Vyse and Orchid Malevolence give her a strong disable to prevent the hero she blinks on from fighting back, as well as plenty of mana regeneration and a damage increase. Scythe of Vyse is better at shutting down right clickers while Orchid is good at stopping spellcasters and escape-oriented heroes.
To improve your damage, you can get items like Monkey King Bar, Desolator, and Mjollnir, which is an option if the enemy team has many heroes that can become magic immune or have high magic resistance.
For defensive options Eye of Skadi, Shiva's Guard, and Linken's Sphere are luxury pickups that make you harder to kill while also providing utility and mana. The slow effects pierce BKB and the added HP/Armor/Spell Shield, respectively, help you survive long enough to blink to safety.
Veil of Discord provides good stats at a fair price and the build-up is nice. Get one if your team can use the damage amp, but don't forget Sonic Wave will not benefit from it.
Aether Lens is not too bad either to buff up your damage, the 200 extra range on blink is always nice, though the range is already so good you probably don't need it for this particular reason. Unfortunately, it doesn't add the cast range to Scream of Pain.
Necronomicon is also good on QoP, it helps you bring towers down and it deals an unsuspected amount of damage if you can blink on top of an opponent and use it immediately. Especially deadly paired up with a Scythe of Vyse.

Gameplay[edit]

Strategy & Tips

Counters &
Matchups

Audio[edit]

Responses

Sounds

History[edit]

Lore

Old Abilities

Changelogs

Equipment[edit]

Trivia[edit]

Akasha is the name (or variant of the name) of the fifth element in many religions such as Hinduism, Wicca (or other Neopaganism), with its roots deriving from ancient Paganism. "Akasha", when translated to English (from Sanskrit), means "aether" (air/spirit, depending on context). This element is seen/represented as the top point of a pentagram, a symbol sometimes misused as one of evil (there is no devil-esque figure in Paganism), and could have been intended to show or derive from Queen of Pain's sadistic nature. Doom's Doom skill icon is a regular pentagram, so it might be a misconception held by the DotA staff and reasoning for her name. A regular pentagram on someone, ignoring misconceptions, is actually protective.
- The name Aether is one of the many references Dota 2 makes to Greek mythology, as it is derived from a Greek deity of the same name.
- Akasha is also the name of the Queen of the Damned from Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles novel series, which could have inspired Queen of Pain's name, who, in turn, could have derived her name from the above roots.
Scream of Pain's and Sonic Wave's sounds are based on some voice lines of Queen of Pain. Scream of Pain is based on this Play, while Sonic Wave uses a part of this Play.
Queen of Pain's dying line "Your queen is dead" is possibly a reference to The Smiths' album, The Queen is Dead.
Most of Queen of Pain's abilities were derived from the Warcraft III Night Elf hero, the Warden, with Sonic Wave being the only new ability introduced, replacing Vengeance. Fan of Knives was also substituted for Scream of Pain with the same effect, though an older version of Queen of Pain did have the Fan of Knives ability.
Queen of Pain's response for killing Phantom Assassin "Blink! You're dead." likely refers to the popular Dr. Who episode "Don't Blink" in which the Doctor says, referring to Weeping Angels, "Don't blink, don't even blink. Blink, and you're dead."