Dark Seer
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Ish'kafel the Dark Seer is a melee intelligence hero who relies on his abilities' potent utility and synergy. In lane he is sustained by high armor and enabled by his Ion Shell and Surge. Surge boosts his or an ally's speed, helping them to escape or pursue opponents. Ion Shell wraps a unit in a spiky shield that rapidly damages nearby enemies, enabling Ish'kafel to harass and gain last hits. These abilities also make him an efficient jungler and therefore a natural semi-carry, usually focused on building utility items.
Dark Seer's greatest damage is done during teamfights and comes from the combination of his final two abilities. Vacuum makes for powerful initiations. It sucks in nearby enemies, briefly disabling them and making them susceptible to area of effect spells—such as his Wall of Replica. The wall slows his foes and creates replicas of any enemy heroes that cross it, high-damage illusions that Dark Seer can control. A subtle hero, Ish'kafel's dark energies can be deadly in the right hands.
Contents
Bio[edit]
Abilities[edit]
Notes:
- The pull duration always takes 0.3/0.4/0.5/0.6 seconds, no matter how far or close the units are from the center, so the speed varies.
- The damage is applied upon losing the debuff, so that dispelling it causes it to happen earlier.
- Affected units are fully disabled during the pull.
- Can pull units over impassable terrain.
- Fully affects invisible and invulnerable units (exept for units affected by Eul's Scepter of Divinity's Cyclone), but not hidden units.
- Does not affect ancient creeps and creep-heroes.
- Vacuum destroys trees within 275 radius at the targeted point upon cast, after placing the debuff on enemies.

Cannot be cast on spell immune enemies. Shell persists if debuff was placed before spell immunity and when not dispelled.
Notes:
- The shell can be put on enemy and allied units, damaging only enemy units. The unit with the shell itself is not damaged.
- Successive casts on the same unit do not stack, but refresh the duration and update the damage to the current level instead.
- When two opposing heroes cast it on the same target, the modifier updates and starts damaging the enemies of the latest caster.
- The modifier status, however, does not update. Whether it is treated as a buff or debuff is determined by the first cast, and not updated on refresh.
- Deals 2.4/4.6/6.8/9 (
10.4/12.6/14.8/17) damage in 0.1 second intervals, starting 0.1 second after the cast, resulting in 250 damage instances.
- Can deal up to 600/1150/1700/2250 (
2600/3150/3700/4250) damage to a single unit (before reductions), if it stays in range for the full duration.
- Affects invisible units that go close to the shell wearer, however, the visual effects do not appear.
- Cannot be cast on creep-heroes or couriers.
- Choosing the damage upgrading talent immediately upgrades all of Dark Seer's currently active Ion Shell modifiers.
Allies
Notes:
- Also grants the target phased movement, and removes the movement speed limit while affected.
- The talent turns Surge into an area-targeted spell, so that it cannot directly target units anymore.
- Self-casting the ability still targets Dark Seer, centering the AoE around him.
Enemy Heroes
Notes:
- The values of the wall are set upon creation, and do not update upon leveling the spell further up after having placed the wall.
- However, Aghanim's Scepter's bonus is applied to the wall immediately. Illusions created while having Scepter get the increased damage.
- A wall can only create one illusion per player. There cannot be more than one illusion per player per wall.
- This means when there are multiple walls up (with the talent, or with multiple casts), each wall can create an illusion for each enemy.
- This also means that when an enemy has multiple heroes ( Divided We Stand and Tempest Double clones), they are still limited to one illusion per wall.
- Even if the illusion gets Enchanted, the wall can still not create a new ilusion.
- Only creates illusions of real heroes. Does not create illusions of illusions pathing through the wall.
- Can create illusions of Divided We Stand and Tempest Double clones as well, but not of Wukong's Command clones.
- Can create the illusions of invulnerable enemies, but not hidden ones. The slow, however, is not placed on invulnerable units.
- Upon spawning, the illusions are automatically ordered to attack the heroes they are based on.
- When the illusion dies, the wall can create a new illusion of that hero as soon as it comes in range.
- Illusions created by Wall of Replica have a static 5 gold and experience bounty which does not scale with levels.
- The illusions's duration is based on the remaining duration of the wall from which they originate.
- The illusion spawns 108 range away from the hero if the hero has a collision size of 24, and 72 if the collision size is 8. It appears either north, east, south or west from the target.
- Wall of Replica illusions are visually distinguishable for the enemies.
- The slow is applied constantly within the wall's area. When walls overlap with each, their slows do not stack.
- When choosing the parallel wall talent, a second wall is placed 600 range behind the cast location of first wall, parallel to it.
Talents[edit]
Hero Talents | ||
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400 AoE Surge | 25 | Parallel Wall |
+80 Ion Shell Damage | 20 | +10 Armor |
+75 Vacuum AoE | 15 | +12 Health Regen |
+90 Damage | 10 | 12% Evasion |
- This attack damage talent is added as raw attack damage, so it does not benefit illusions, and is not affected by most percentage-based damage increasing or reducing effects.
- The evasion talent stacks multiplicatively with other sources of evasion.
Recent Changes[edit]
- Vacuum now affects invulnerable units as well. [?]
- Aghanim's Scepter
- No longer increases damage dealt by Wall of Replica illusions from 70%/85%/100% to 100%/120%/140%.
- Now reduces Vacuum's cooldown from 60/50/40/30 to 12 on each level.
- Now multiplies Wall of Replica's length by 2.
Recommended items[edit]
Starting items:
- Tango sustains health in the laning stage.
- Healing Salve restores health to stay in lane.
- Clarity sustains mana to use Ion Shell.
- Iron Branch boosts Dark Seer's attributes, build up to a Magic Wand and/or Mekansm later on, or use with Tango for more healing.
- Enchanted Mango gives health regeneration and can restore mana in a pinch, before Dark Seer acquires Soul Ring.
Early game:
- Magic Stick gives burst health and mana in a pinch.
- Soul Ring covers most of your mana issues and allows you to constantly use Ion Shell in order to harass your lane opponents and get some last hits.
- Boots of Speed gives mobility for chasing or running away.
- Infused Raindrop gives mana regeneration and absorbs some magical damage.
Mid game:
- Magic Wand sustains health and mana in fights.
- Helm of the Dominator allows you to pull off Vacuum combos by yourself. Also, gives you an additional controllable unit to use Ion Shell on to fight or to push out waves.
- Arcane Boots increase your mana pool and allow you to restore your teammates' mana.
- Mekansm adds to Dark Seer's teamfight effectiveness and increases durability. Also his decent intelligence gain means he will generally have enough mana to use the heal.
- Blink Dagger can help you positioning to place a better vacuum wall combo.
- Town Portal Scroll allows you to be at any lane for a gank, countergank, or push in seconds.
Late game:
- Guardian Greaves restores both health and mana to team; the health regeneration and armor aura works better on wounded allies.
- Shiva's Guard grants you more punch to your Vacuum and Wall of Replica initiation, and gives you armor and intelligence.
- Lotus Orb removes debuffs from Dark Seer or an ally, as well as granting Echo Shell to reflect spells.
Situational items:
- Force Staff changes position of Dark Seer or any heroes.
- Pipe of Insight grants you and your allies protection from magical damage.
- Crimson Guard can protect your team from physical attacks in teamfights.
- Aghanim's Scepter effectively allows your illusions to deal more damage than your opponents, thereby significantly increasing your team fight potential.
- Ghost Scepter should be considered to counter high physical damage dealers, ensuring your survival to use abilities.
- Black King Bar guarantees your initiation with spell immunity to ward off almost all disables.
- Scythe of Vyse grants mana regeneration and Hex to completely nullify an enemy hero from using abilities or attacking.
- Refresher Orb allows you to use your abilities and items twice in a row if needed.
- Radiance for dealing more magical damage combined with ion shell and 17% miss chance combined with your evasion.
- Octarine Core will restore your health because of your aoe magical damage abilities and lower cooldowns for better influence in fight.
Gameplay[edit]
Roles: | Initiator Jungler Escape Disabler |
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Complexity: | ★☆☆ |
Playstyle: | In a final, calculated move, Ish'Kafel led his outnumbered army into a new world, sealing the path behind with a burst of dark energy. A cunning tactician, the Dark Seer manipulates gravity to pull foes into a Vacuum, drawing them into the prismatic thorns of his Ion Shell. Armed only with his intellect, he Surges across the land to survey every point of conflict. At strategic locations Ish'Kafel places a Wall of Replica, sowing confusion amongst enemy ranks as an army of duplicates emerge to do battle against their own likenesses. |
Audio[edit]
History[edit]
Equipment[edit]
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Trivia[edit]
- Dark Seer's response, "Speed is the heart of battle." is an indirect quote of Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu, who said "Quickness is the essence of war."
- Dark Seer's response, ▶️ "No, I will not calm my beard." is a response to Beastmaster's and Clockwerk's rival hero taunts, both voiced by Sam A. Mowry.
- Dark Seer's Vacuum's lore is based on the military term, center of gravity, which is a concept developed by Carl Von Clausewitz, a Prussian military theorist, in his work On War.