Death Prophet/Guide

Hero

 

Strategy

 

Equipment

 

Gear

 

Talents

 

Relics

 

Responses

 

Sounds

 

Animations

 

Lore

 

Old Abilities

 

Changelogs

 

Known Bugs

 

Gameplay

Playstyle
Death Prophet is a powerful spell-caster, who has wide Area of Effect (AoE) spells which specialize in pushing lanes and also devastating enemy defensive towers quickly in order to enter their enemy base, to gain victory within a short period of time. Exorcism can devastate towers in a short period of time, while also being a great ability for teamfights. To keep herself alive, she can use Silence and Spirit Siphon to remain active while still dealing damage.
Pros	Cons
Can push lanes and destroy towers quickly. High survivability. High base movement speed allows her to chase enemies. High damage burst. Role versatility.	Lack of escape ability. Long cast animation besides Spirit Siphon. Semi-item dependent hero. Long cooldown of Exorcism. Awfully slow attack projectile.

Pusher

Death Prophet's main role is usually a pusher. With the combination of low cooldown Crypt Swarm spam can quickly clear waves of creeps and Exorcism allows her to destroy towers quickly to push the lanes faster. She can be paired up with other pusher heroes that can summon units like Nature's Prophet's Nature's Call Treant, Enigma's Demonic Conversion Eidolons, Broodmother's Spawn Spiderlings Spiderlings etc. which can devastate enemy towers and barracks quickly.

Tank / Support

Death Prophet also can be played as a sub-tank or support-tank. A focus on health boosting and defensive items will help her to survive, allowing Exorcism to last longer during team fights. Furthermore she also can use Spirit Siphon as pseudo-lifesteal on single or multiple enemies which makes her harder to kill.

Ability Builds

Generic Death Prophet
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	20	25

Talents

Hero Talents
+8 Exorcism Spirits	25	-22s Spirit Siphon Replenish Time
+30 Spirit Siphon Damage/Heal	20	Crypt Swarm Applies 50% Slow for 1s
-2.5s Crypt Swarm Cooldown	15	+300 Health
+12% Magic Resistance	10	+30 Damage

Notes:

• Stacks diminishingly with other magic resistance sources.
  • Increases Death Prophet's magic resistance to 34%.

• Grants bonus attack damage.
  • Does not benefit illusions and is not affected by most percentage-based damage increasing or reducing effects.

• The health talent increases the max health capacity and keeps the current health percentage.

Tips & Tactics

General

• Death Prophet is best played in the middle lane, easily farming up gold for her items with careful use of Crypt Swarm. Be cautious though as pushing too much with the area damage can leave Death Prophet open to ganks, from which her only means of defense is Spirit Siphon, which is never guaranteed to ensure her survival.
• All of Death Prophet's spells are area of effect, excluding Spirit Siphon. This means they cannot block Death Prophet's spell with Linken's Sphere. While Spirit Siphon can be negated by it, you can use extra charges to cast it again afterwards.
• Although Death Prophet has high base movement speed, she lacks escape abilities. One hard disable can bring you down if there are no reinforcements nearby.
• In a large clash, Death Prophet should be swooping around silencing and nuking enemy supports while eroding their health with Exorcism. Carries almost unfailingly have higher armor than supports, and since Exorcism is physical damage, her damage potential is highest when she focuses on the supports.
• Given her above-average base movement speed and Phase Boots, Death Prophet moves extremely fast and can often avoid damage simply by being faster than her aggressor. A Eul's Scepter of Divinity is also a common pickup on her and increases her movement speed to phenomenal levels. Death Prophet tends to chase people around a lot with Exorcism, so high movement speed is a must and can also help the spirits damage enemies around Death Prophet while she is safe.
• Coordinated teams will often focus Death Prophet first to avoid being overwhelmed by Exorcism. It′s imperative to be cautious about your positioning so your Spirit Siphon and Exorcism can ramp up in damage. Teammates with strong defensive abilities or items should focus on keeping you alive wherever possible.

Abilities

Crypt Swarm

• Crypt Swarm is a very powerful area of effect nuke which damages enemies in a cone-shaped area. Its power falls off later in the game, but it can still clear creep waves with two uses, between which the cooldown should be very short at that point.
• The target range of Crypt Swarm is 600 but it can travel up to 1110 range maximum, do not hesitate to harass laning enemy heroes to force them to retreat to their defensive towers.
• Crypt Swarm is a dual sided target ability that can be targeted both onto a unit or the ground. Usually it is much easier to target the ground due to the short casting range of the spell.
• Crypt Swarm can be used to kill enemy lane creeps with ease, as well as to prevent the enemy from denying them as the damage is higher than any hero's basic attacks during the early game. At the same time it can harass the enemy hero with some clever positioning.
• Although Crypt Swarm has large area of effect, some enemy heroes can easily avoid Crypt Swarm by just looking at your long cast animation. Mid heroes like Puck (using Phase Shift) or Templar Assassin (using Refraction) can easily nullify your damage.
• Since Crypt Swarm has a low cooldown and is also spamable, though as the skill level goes higher, the mana consumption will increase as well. Try to maintain your mana by avoiding careless use of the ability in the laning phrase.
• Crypt Swarm is typically maxed first as it is a very strong AoE nuke with low cooldown, followed by Spirit Siphon, which helps her sustain in lane and survive teamfights.

Silence

• Silence is a powerful utility disable which prevent enemies from casting spells for up to 6 seconds at max level.
• Silence has a nice long 900 cast range which can safely be cast at far distances and also has a big 425 area of effect, try to silence as many heroes as possible. The long range silence are also great to cancel powerful channeling ultimate abilities such as Black Hole, Fiend's Grip, Freezing Field and Death Ward, provided that they are not affected by spell immunity.
• Some players might take one level of Silence during laning phase or early team fights, especially when facing hard spellcaster heroes that interrupt your actions, so she can secure a kill easily.
• Remember that Silence can be dispelled by enemies, smart players can purchase dispel items such as Eul's Scepter of Divinity, Guardian Greaves, Lotus Orb, Manta Style to remove the silence debuff. But silence is also a great way to force them to activate Black King Bar for the dispel, which will later weaken them during a team fight.
• Silence also good against heroes with powerful buffs like Ursa's , and Lifestealer's Rage which require their spell to cast; just make sure that you inflict them with silence before they cast it.
• Put a single point in Silence early if the enemy is reliant on spell casting, such as Dazzle, Leshrac or Lion.

Spirit Siphon

• Spirit Siphon that drains the enemy's health and movement speed to sustain and buff Death Prophet during team fights.
• The sprite animation of Spirit Siphon works similar to Pugna's Life Drain. Unlike Pugna, she can move freely during drain until the target enemy moves outside of the break range of 750, the drain duration ends or the enemy dies. Drain and healing will continue even if the target or Death Prophet becomes disabled or invulnerable. Smart players can predict enemies movement with slow animation disables like Storm Hammer or Wraithfire Blast to recover the damage taken.
• The health drain scales with the target enemy's max HP. The more HP that enemy is, the more health you will be drain. Although health drain scales with the enemy's max HP, the damage type is magical which is reduced by magic resistance.
• Death Prophet can use Spirit Siphon on creeps but not Roshan.
• Spirit Siphon is a charge-based spell like Earth Spirit's Stone Remnant that can store up to 4 charges at max level. Besides level 1, you can cast on a single enemy after the duration finishes and cast it again without waiting for a cooldown unless you had one charge left.
• Spirit Siphon can be cast on multiple targets at once, provided enough charges are available, allowing Death Prophet to replenish health very rapidly if she is standing in the middle of the enemy team.

Exorcism

• Exorcism is a fantastic pushing ultimate that can easily take down towers and Roshan if left unhindered. Fighting into an activated Exorcism is quite dangerous as well, which means hindering her is not easy.
• Always remember Exorcism's damage is physical, hence, armor reduction increases its damage. Focusing on targets with low armor (intelligence and many strength heroes) yields the best result of Exorcism. That said, its damage is a threat even to targets with very high armor, and those carrying a Black King Bar.
• The Exorcism spirits have a travel time and after each attack must return to Death Prophet. The closer you stand to a target, the less the spirits have to travel, thus dealing more overall damage.
• Use Exorcism as early as it is practically possible for clashes, as the sooner it is cast the sooner her spirits will return and heal her. Her spirits will easily harvest enough life to restore her HP entirely, and the conclusion of her ultimate can save Death Prophet's life as well as severely endanger the lives of her adversaries as she returns to battle with full health.

Items

Starting items:

• Clarity allows Death Prophet to keep using Crypt Swarm.
• Tango provides health regeneration to keep Death Prophet in lane.
• Healing Salve also restores health.
• Iron Branch gives intelligence that boosts mana pool and attack damage to last hit; Death Prophet can use it with Tango to heal more.
• Magic Stick is generally good to pick up because even minimum charges can mean the difference between casting a spell or not.

Early game:

• Boots of Speed allows Death Prophet to be more efficient at ganking early.
• Magic Wand is a fairly inexpensive upgrade to the early Iron Branches and Magic Stick that provides an extra heal.
• Null Talisman increases Death Prophet's mana pool, as well as giving some extra health and damage.

Mid game:

• Phase Boots has strong synergy with Death Prophet's movement speed.
• Eul's Scepter of Divinity is an amazing item on Death Prophet as it gives movement speed, mana, and a way to disable an enemy or herself. When paired with Exorcism, Death Prophet can be kept out of combat while her spirits do massive damage to enemies.
• Force Staff will give Death Prophet extra intelligence and health. And it's active ability will help Death Prophet escape from ganks or chase after enemy heroes. Force Staff can later be upgraded into Hurricane Pike that can do the same while also increasing Death Prophet's attack range.
• Black King Bar gives a boost to HP as well as the ability to get in the middle of team fights, where Exorcism can deal the most damage.
• Drum of Endurance gives good attribute boosts for the price as well as even more movement and attack speed for her team.
• Witch Blade is an exceptionally important item for Death Prophet to have as her durability is low and her attack projectile speed is awfully slow. Witch Blade will give Death Prophet more armor to withstand more damage, more intelligence to use her abilities more often, more attack speed to attack more often, true strike every 9 seconds, and will increase the travelling speed of her attack projecitles. Witch Blade can later be upgraded into Revenant's Brooch that can be activated to give Death Prophet true strike for her next five attacks that can also deal magic damage, weaken magic resistance and attack ethereal units.

Late game:

• Octarine Core allows Death Prophet to use her abilities more frequently in fights, and reduces the time she has to wait between fights for Exorcism to come off cooldown.
• Wind Waker, an upgrade for Eul's Scepter of Divinity will improve Death Prophet's escape tool, and will also allow it to save her allies from bad situations.
• Shiva's Guard gives Death Prophet another nuke, as well as a larger mana pool and more armor, both of which she needs. It also allows Death Prophet to reduce any healing enemy heroes receive.
• Silver Edge will give Death Prophet attack speed, chance to deal critical strikes and to have her next attack apply a break that will disable enemy hero's passive abilities, as well as an escape tool. Silver Edge can be also activated during Exorcism to wreak havoc on unsuspecting enemies.
• Scythe of Vyse will give Death Prophet a strong disable that will allow her to hex enemies, silencing them, disarming them and muting them, and will also give her a much larger mana pool.
• Aghanim's Scepter will allow Exorcism to passively summon a spirit that will slow, and hit the enemy for an increased bonus of its usual damage then return to her with a healing anytime she damages them with normal attacks, abilities and items, which can lessen her dependence on Exorcism to be effective in teamfights and pushing.
• Aghanim's Shard will give Death Prophet an extra charge for Spirit Siphon and will also allow her to slow and fear enemies for 1.2 seconds if they are affected by Spirit Siphon for 3 seconds consecutively.
• Hurricane Pike will give Death Prophet a good amount of attributes, tool to escape from enemy heroes and to chase after them while also increasing her attack range.
• Revenant's Brooch, an upgrade for Witch Blade will give Death Prophet a lot more intelligence, armor, attack speed, true strike every 9 seconds and increased travelling speed for her attack projectiles. Revenant's Brooch can be activated to make Death Prophet's next five attacks have true strike, deal magic damage while also weakening their magic resistance by 20% for 3 seconds, making them more vulnerable to Crypt Swarm and Spirit Siphon. And most importantly, Revenant's Brooch's active ability will allow Death Prophet to attack ethereal units who try to protect themselves with abilities and items that turn the user ethereal against Exorcism.
• Boots of Travel will give Death Prophet lots of movement speed and will also allow her to teleport to almost any point of the map, which can be useful for split-pushing with Exorcism.

Situational items:

• Arcane Boots can restore mana to Death Prophet and nearby allies. Later it can be either upgraded into Guardian Greaves that can do the same while also healing Death Prophet and nearby allies and apply a basic dispel on her. Or it can be disassembled and upgraded into Aether Lens for extra mana pool, mana regeneration and extra casting range and Boots of Travel for global presence, extra movement speed and split-pushing.
• Eternal Shroud significantly increases Death Prophet's durability against magic damage, as well as allowing her to recover health in fights with her abilities.
• Bloodstone provides exceptional mana regeneration, as well as spell amplification and spell lifesteal, allowing Death Prophet to stay in fights longer and freely use Crypt Swarm to farm and push lanes.
• Pipe of Insight is a notable pick up because of the health regeneration as well as magic resistance, and when paired with Mekansm, Death Prophet can turn around a losing fight, or create a strong initiation.
• Assault Cuirass will give Death Prophet bonus armor to withstand more damage, attack speed to attack faster and the ability to reduce armor of nearby enemies and buildings, which can boost the effect of Exorcism's physical damage output greatly.
• Aether Lens will give Death Prophet bonus mana and will also increase her mana regeneration and casting range for her abilities.
• Solar Crest slows and makes Exorcism do a lot more damage to a single target, as well as providing mana regeneration, armor, and attributes, which Death Prophet wants.
• Heart of Tarrasque will allow Death Prophet to stay in team-fights much longer by increasing her health, strength and health regeneration.
• Veil of Discord will allow Death Prophet to cause enemies that get caught in it's blast radius to take bonus spell damage from her abilities, and will also give her bonus mana regeneration and attributes.
• Dagon will give Death Prophet nice attributes and a spell lifesteal that will allow her to heal herself with her abilities and additional magical damage burst that will allow her to finish off enemy heroes even faster.
• Kaya improves Death Prophet's damage output and lessens the strain on her mana pool. Can be built into Ethereal Blade for disarm and spell amplification.
• Ethereal Blade will give Death Prophet bonus intelligence and will also amplify her mana regeneration, spell amplification and will also allow her to disarm enemies and make them more vulnerable to Crypt Swarm's and Spirit Siphon's magical damage output, as well as defend herself against heroes who rely on direct attacks to deal damage. However, Exorcism will not be able to damage ethereal units as it's damage type is physical instead of magical.
• Rod of Atos will give Death Prophet bonus health and intelligence while also allowing her to keep enemies within range of her spells, and makes it easier to land Silence. Rod of Atos can later be upgraded into Gleipnir for a root in an area and passive chain lightning.
• Gleipnir, an upgrade for Rod of Atos, will give Death Prophet the ability to root enemies in an area while also allowing her normal attacks to release a chain lightning that can bounce between enemies and damage them.