Shadow Demon
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Shadow Demon is a menacing ranged intelligence hero who is most powerful in the early game for his strong set of spells. Disruption takes an enemy or ally out of the fight, banishing them to a shadowy realm and returning them a short time later along with two hostile demonic illusions. Soul Catcher can curse his victims with vulnerability, instantly removing a fraction of their current health. His Shadow Poison can harass any unfortunate foe he encounters, gradually dealing more damage with each application until the Shadow Demon releases the poison from the target in a powerful, damaging burst. Demonic Purge, his ultimate, is key for securing kills: The Shadow Demon greatly slows his fleeing victim and removes all dispellable buffs, crippling and weakening them, while also (when upgraded with Aghanim's Scepter) applying a Break that disables almost all passive skills. Heavily reliant on the coordination and effectiveness of his own team, Shadow Demon proves to be incredibly strong as a defensive support by keeping his teammates alive reliably and as an offensive support by amplifying damage and endlessly slowing enemies until they're unable to escape. A formidable ally, who requires little farm to contribute greatly to his team, good positioning and timing from Shadow Demon's spells can make all the difference, and makes for one of the most potentially powerful supports well into the late game.
Contents
Bio[edit]
Abilities[edit]
Target Unit
Notes:
- Disruption fully disables the target and turns it invulnerable and hidden for its duration.
- When the target turns invisible during Disruption, the visual effects turn invisible as well.
- Always creates the illusions, even when cast on allies or self.
- The targeted unit's position is not shuffled with the possible illusion's position. It always reappears between the 2 illusions.
- The illusions spawn 108 range away from the hero if the hero has a collision size of 24, and 72 if the collision size is 8.
- Each illusion appears either north, east, south or west from the hero and face the same direction as the hero does.
- The illusions carry the caster's name, not the targeted unit's player name, revealing that they are illusions when not cast on self.
- The current health of the illusions is determined upon casting Disruption.
- This means any health loss caused by Shadow Demon's spells during Disruption do not affect the health of the illusions that are about to spawn.
- Can be cast on illusions, creating illusions based on the original hero.
- When the targeted unit dies during Disruption, no illusions are created.
- The disablehelp option prevents an allied Shadow Demon from casting this spell on you.
Target Area
Enemies
Notes:
- Directly manipulates enemies' health. Does not deal damage.
- This means it bypasses every damage manipulating effect.
- The returned health at the end of the duration is based on how much health was removed initially. It is not based on the current health upon expiring.
- Does not affect invulnerable enemies, and ancient creeps.
Notes:
- Shadow Poison travels at a speed of 1000 and always travels the full distance, which takes 1.5 seconds.
- Can hit units up to 1700 range away (travel distance + effect radius).
- Fully affects invisible units and units under the effect of the most recent Disruption cast by Shadow Demon.
- Fully ignores other invulnerable or hidden units.
- Deals the initial damage instantly and adds 1 stack to all enemy units within 200 radius of it on each cast.
- The poison first applies the debuff or adds a stack, then deals the initial damage.
- Successive hits on the same unit fully refresh the whole stack's duration.
- The first 5 stacks multiply the stack damage by 1/2/4/8/16 depending on the amount of stacks.
- Every following stack adds 50 (
60) damage on top of that, so the damage starts growing linearly after the 5th stack.
- This is how much damage 1/2/3/4/5/6 stacks can deal on each level (ignoring the initial damage):
- The damage is dealt as soon as the Shadow Poison debuff is removed, no matter how.
- The current number of stacks is visible to Shadow Demon and his allies above the affected units. Enemies cannot see it.
- This number is visually capped at 19, however, the poison has no stack limit and can be stacked infinitely.
- The current number of stacks is also shown on the debuff icon, which is visible to everyone.
- The projectile provides 200 radius flying vision as it travels. This vision does not last.
- In Ability Draft, since non-ultimate abilities are limited to one ability slot, this ability is not available in Ability Draft.
No Target
Notes:
- Shadow Poison Release is unlocked upon learning Shadow Poison and stays always active.


Notes:
- Applies a basic dispel on the target upon cast and over its entire duration. The damage (
or heal) is applied after the end of the duration.
- Demonic Purge first applies the dispel, then the debuff.
- Can be cast on invulnerable units, applying the initial dispel and the debuff if the invulnerability can be dispelled.
- The slow starts at 100% decreases over time to 20%. Hit units regain 0.381% of their movement speed on each server tick.
- This translates to 11.43% movement speed regained per second.
- Recasting onto the same target removes the modifier from a previous cast, triggering the damage (
or heal), and then applies a new instance.
- The damage can affect a unit under the effect of the most recent Disruption cast by Shadow Demon.
- With Aghanim's Scepter, applies Break on the target as well.
- The break stops affecting the target before it deals its damage.
Talents[edit]
Hero Talents | ||
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2 Charges of Disruption | 25 | +400 Demonic Purge Damage |
-1.25s Shadow Poison Cooldown | 20 | -5s Soul Catcher Cooldown |
+20% Shadow Poison Damage | 15 | +20 Movement Speed |
+75 Cast Range | 10 | +15 Intelligence |
- The intelligence talent effectively grants Shadow Demon 180 mana, 0.75 mana regen, and 15 attack damage.
Recent Changes[edit]
- Shadow Poison is no longer dispellable.
- Demonic Purge
- The damage now starts at 0 and scales up to the given values over the duration.
- Recasting Demonic Purge on the same target now removes the previous debuff, triggering its damage, and then places a new debuff.
- Added Aghanim's Shard upgrade for Shadow Demon:
- Allows Demonic Purge to be cast on allies, continuously dispelling them, and healing them at the end of the duration, instead of damaging. Does not slow allies.
- Talents:
- Level 10 right talent: +12 intelligence increased to +15.
- Talents:
- Level 10 right talent changed: Soul Catcher spawns illusion on death [?] ➜ +12 intelligence.
Recommended items[edit]
Starting items:
- Iron Branch provides cheap attributes and can later build into Magic Wand.
- Tango provides health regeneration early in the game. Shadow Demon can share Tango with the team's carry, allowing them to stay longer in lane.
- Healing Salve also restores health for Shadow Demon to quickly get back into action.
- Animal Courier ferries items to teammates.
- Observer Ward provides vision over enemies.
- Sentry Ward reveals enemy wards for Shadow Demon to destroy.
Early game:
- Magic Stick provides burst health and mana, an excellent source of sustain.
- Boots of Speed give Shadow Demon the mobility he needs for ganking and escaping.
- Wind Lace grants bonus movement speed for cheap.
- Smoke of Deceit makes ganks easier by hiding your squad and speeding up their movement.
Mid game:
- Magic Wand gives attributes and more health and mana burst than Magic Stick.
- Arcane Boots provide additional mana pool and consistent restoration for repeated uses of Shadow Poison.
- Force Staff improves Shadow Demon's intelligence and utility; a typical support item to either reposition, run away, chase, initiate, or save an ally.
- Glimmer Cape provides invisibility and magic resistance so that Shadow Demon or an ally can escape.
- Town Portal Scroll allows Shadow Demon to rapidly escape from danger, defend towers, join teamfights, or set up ganks.
Late game:
- Kaya increases spell damage and reduces the mana cost of abilities.
- Eul's Scepter of Divinity gives you an extra dispel to work with. The movement speed bonus helps with mobility as well as position, and the intelligence and mana regeneneration aids ability usage.
- Aghanim's Scepter applies break with two extra charges which are well worth the cost, and you should always consider it at one point or another.
Situational items:
- Ghost Scepter provides bonus attributes and a defense mechanism against enemy physical attacks.
- Guardian Greaves grants an aura of armor and health regeneration that works better on wounded allies, as well as an active to restore large amounts of health and mana in a radius.
- Blink Dagger provides strong mobility so you can setup ganks with Disruption; you can also Blink out of Disruption as a defense mechanism.
- Aether Lens benefits all abilities of Shadow Demon, especially Disruption, which has a fairly low cast range. The mana regeneration also allows you to sustain while you spam with Shadow Poison to farm or to scout. You can disassemble Arcane Boots to build this item.
- Veil of Discord provides some armor and intelligence so you can stay alive longer to use abilities. The active ability lowers enemy magic resistance, which is great if your team relies on magical damage or to boost your own damage output.
- Pipe of Insight gives a good health regeneration aura. More importantly, it allows Shadow Demon to produce a barrier that absorbs magical damage for nearby allies, extending their longevity in teamfights.
- Rod of Atos provides attributes to build up health and mana, as well as a root to hold enemies in place.
- Shiva's Guard gives an additional area-of-effect slow besides Demonic Purge. The Freezing Aura, armor, and intelligence give Shadow Demon greatly increased sustainability and mana in teamfights.
- Scythe of Vyse grants mana regeneration, great intelligence, and other attributes. You can use Hex immediately as it has no cast time, allowing teammates to hit the target with ease.
Gameplay[edit]
Roles: | Support Disabler Initiator Nuker |
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Complexity: | ★★☆ |
Playstyle: | Conspiring to gain power in material plane, the Shadow Demon patiently amassed himself a cult of followers. An entity of malevolent corruption, he spreads Shadow Poison to pollute the pure, compounding its effects with Soul Catcher. Heroes sent into the void of Disruption are temporarily hidden, but return with two illusions under his command. A Demonic Purge strips unneeded servants of every enchantment, effectively relieving them of their duties—and their lives. |
Audio[edit]
History[edit]
Equipment[edit]
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Trivia[edit]
- In Dota, Shadow Demon's hero name was Eredar. This was removed in his transition to Dota 2 to avoid copyright issues with Blizzard as the Eredar are a race of magic wielders from the Warcraft universe.[1]
- Shadow Demon's fun/alternate name was "Giblet", innards of birds that are used in cooking.
- All of his spell sound effects are based on some of his voice lines in the demon language "Ozkavosh". This ▶️ line (" Sa nith icha gluth.") is used for Disruption, the first part of this ▶️ line ("Ozh icha tak izh") is used by Soul Catcher, this ▶️ is used by Shadow Poison and this ▶️ line ("Ozh icha tak lash") is split up into 3 parts and then used by Demonic Purge.
Gallery[edit]
Low Violence model