[Hero] Demented Shaman

From the Official Heroes of Newerth forum by JoeMartin



An In-Depth Exploration of Mechanics and General Gamplay Guide to
DEMENTED SHAMAN

Table of Contents


Post 1: General Information

Introduction
Basic Stats
Advanced Stats
Skills Overview

Post 2: In-Depth Skill Analysis/Application and Skill Build

Entangle
Arcane Hide
Healing Wave
Storm Cloud
Skill Build

Post 3: Itemization

Starting Out
Early Game
Mid Game
Late Game Luxury/Optional
Friends and Foes
Closing Notes
References

Introduction
Welcome to my guide for what I firmly believe to be one of the best heroes in the game. Demented Shaman, or DSham as I may occasionally refer to him herein, really does have it all. He's a babysitter, supporter, healer, ganker, pusher, and defender all-in-one. The best part about this is that he's good at all of them and doesn't have to sacrifice anything to be so. The reason I find this hero so intriguing and so powerful is that he falls into the easy to learn, hard to master category. One of the biggest reason for this, as we'll come to see through this guide, is that all of his abilities are low mana cost, low cooldown. On top of that, all of them have multiple applications for a multitude of situations, and none of them are lacking in power or potency. This hero is the very essence of adaptability, and I believe that coming to fully understand the interactions of all his skills will leave you a better HON player for it.



Basic Stats

Damage: 41-59
Attack Range: 600
Attack Speed: 0.71
Armor: 1.94
Move Speed: 305


Strength: 16 (+1.85)
Agility: 21 (+1.7)
Intelligence: 27 (+3.4)

Several things should jump out to you about Demented Shaman's base stats. First you'll notice that his base damage attack has quite the spread. 41-59 is a wide gap, but at the same time, 59 is an outstanding high end. For the sake of argument we're just going to say that his base auto attack damage is 50 (which, statistically, it would average out to be); 50 is a great base damage line, and while it is by no means the best, it is in the upper echelon of ranged heroes in general; even better then, that he's at the max 600 range. His base attack speed is also well above average, being ousted only by Nymphora for intelligence heroes.

Demented Shaman's movespeed is above average, not hugely so, but it's nice considering your 600 ranged auto-attack. More importantly, it meshes well with your snare/disable, Entangle. Personally I'm a sucker for high base movement speed, and I generally dislike playing heroes with limited mobility or no snare/disable - positioning is everything - lucky us, Demented Shaman has both.

Looking at his base stats you can see that he starts with lower than average strength (though above average strength gain), and thus starts with a relatively small base health pool. Despite this, you'll itemize to help remedy the situation, not to mention the EHP you'll be giving yourself through Arcane Hide and what with being able to heal yourself and all. Your base agility is also third highest for intelligence heroes (behind Torturer and Nymphora), though you have roughly average agility gain.

More importantly, You'll also notice that Demented Shaman has the highest base intelligence, as well as the highest intelligence gain per level. This means several things: First off, you're going to have an awesome manapool throughout the duration of the game just from your intelligence gain alone, and passive mana regen items will stack better with you, as you'll have higher base intelligence from which they'll multiply. Secondly, on top of your already good base damage, your damage will continue to scale well thanks to your auto primary stat gain, and this is a great thing as you rely heavily on your auto-attack for damage as we'll come to see.



Advanced Stats

Damage point/backswing: 0.3/0.6
Missile speed: 1200
Cast point/backswing: 0.3/0.5
Sight range day/night: 1800/800
Turn rate: 0.36

The first thing up and arguably the most important thing among these stats is Demented Shaman's damage point, or as it's more often referred to, his animation. It's good. Ridiculously good. 2nd best animation in the game good. What that 0.3 means is that from the start of the attack animation, the projectile will actually let loose after only 0.3 seconds. The backswing refers to how much time is left in the animation after the projectile has already been fired. The backswing for any hero's damage point (or cast point) is superfluous - it's completely cosmetic - and it can be cancelled simply by issuing another command (optimally it's either a movement command or hold command). The cancellation of the backswing animation is generally referred to as "animation cancelling" (or is sometimes given the misnomer "orb walking"), and it's an important part to effectively chasing with Demented Shaman, of which we'll go into more detail in the Entangle part of the guide. The important thing to take away from his damage point is that Demented Shaman has to stand still for only 0.3 seconds to get an attack off. It's a fantastic thing for chasing, last hitting, and harassing in a lane, as it allows you to attack at your maximum speed while still staying mobile. Note that all of this does not necessarily mean you're attacking faster than other heroes, just that there's more time between your attacks during which you can be moving.

Demented Shaman's missile speed of 1200 isn't the fastest, but it is easily above average. An above average missile speed combined with a Godlike animation and 600 range makes you an abnoxiously good last hitter/denier in a lane.

You cast point is the same thing as your damage point, only for spells. A cast point of 0.3 is very good as well, though is vastly more common among quite a number of heroes than the 0.3 damage point is. Regardless, the less time spent standing still the better, and with both an awesome damage point and and awesome cast point the Demented Shaman is a very mobile hero, despite the fact that he'll be spamming both his spells and attack. Keep in mind that animation cancelling applies to spells as well.

The only stat that Demented Shaman has at the bare minimum is his turn rate. A 0.36 turn rate is actually fairly common, especially among the ranged heroes, but it's still as slow as it goes, and while it may not sound like a huge deal it's something to keep in mind in some situations. For example, if you're being chased by someone and you want to cast entangle on them, Demented Shaman will actually have to stop and turn until they are within his frontal 180 degree arc before he can cast, and that will take time. Depending on the hero that's chasing and the distance/speed difference it may just be a better idea to juke instead of stopping and turning.



Basic Skill Information

So you have a cursory glance at the skills if you are unfamiliar with them, as well as for reference purposes for the next section.

Entangle
A seemingly straight forward skill that is actually multifaceted in application and practice, and is all around one of the more potent instant-cast ranged disables in the game. First let's make sure we understand exactly how the skill works:


*Note: This is Entangle Rank 4



In summary you're getting:

• A ranged nearly instant cast ministun. Which, in and of itself, has a million applications, namely interrupting channels, be they ultimates, homecoming stones or otherwise.
• 3 seconds of a 66% non-diminishing movement speed slow, second only to Arachna's rank 3 ultimate in potency. It brings people to what literally feels like a crawl for it's duration.
• 1 second of stun. This catches people off guard more often than you'd think. Most people aren't even expecting it, nor do they realize it's even a part of Entangle at all.
• A 9 second cooldown. Nine seconds. As in pretty much spammable.
• Although you cannot apply it to magic immune targets, once you've cast Entangle on someone, it CANNOT be dispelled, purged or otherwise removed. Jeraziah's Protective Charm won't dispel it, Accursed can't dispel it with Fire Shield, Electrician can't Cleansing Shock it, Arachna can't Hardened Carapace out of it, nor will Predator's Stone Hide remove it - Nullfire/Geometer's Bane/Shrunken Head won't dispel it either. Once it's on, it's on, and the target will suffer the slow, stun, and damage (obviously the damage is still physical and is subject to armor reduction/Sol's Blessing/Void Talisman).

It's your staple chase/escape skill, but thanks to it's multifaceted design it's practical application can be applied to so much more. You may notice that I wasn't terribly excited about the damage at the end. It's nothing special, really, but it's nothing to ignore either. 196 physical damage quickly becomes irrelevant as the game goes on (you'll eventually be doing more than that in one auto attack). I have, however, scored a rather comical amount of kills on heroes that narrowly escape, only to die to the Entangle damage 5 seconds later, so there is something to be said for it.


On Chasing and Ganking and Escaping: We've already noted that Shaman has one of the best attack animations in the game, and that, coupled with Entangle, makes you one a great chaser. Once you get a feel for his attack animation and can effectively make the most of animation cancelling you become insanely dangerous in the early game, quite capable of solo ganking a large number of heroes with ease. And while that never really changes for DSham as he retains his high physical damage throughout the duration of the game, he quickly becomes a pestilence to heroes that overextend themselves just one step too far in a lane, resulting in a great number of ganks on the drastically slowed enemy heroes. And like most skills in the game that are good for chasing, they are similarly good for escape. The same is true here. Obviously it won't save you if an entire team is on your ass, but it will save you from Pestilence flighting down the lane that would otherwise get into range and finish you off. Do keep in mind, though, what I mentioned earlier in the advanced stats section about having to stop and turn to cast Entangle. In some situations that may actually mean your death instead of your escape. Obviously when to stop and cast vs. when to juke is hard to qualify, and depends entirely on location/heroes/items at hand - use discretion.

Arcane Hide
A half-way (hur hur hur) decent protective skill that isn't worth it's manacost in the early game, but will still be taken over stats while leveling as it does have it's uses; and once you've got the manapool to maintain it's constant use, it should ideally never be down. Note that in the description there are two seperate conditions (save the buff duration ending) that will cause the buff to end, and one of those conditions is rather esoteric if you're not sure exactly how it works, and I have a visual aide for that as well:

• The most important thing to understand is that damage hits Arcane Hide first, as demonstrated in the above visual. Before damage runs into either your physical or magical armor, it gets cut in half by Arcane Hide first.
• The first condition for the removal of the buff is "After no charges remain." The buff starts with 5 charges, and you will lose 1 charge every time you are attacked by an enemy hero, an enemy tower, or a boss (Kongor, etc). Note that creeps are not mentioned anywhere at all. Creep/Neutral damage will go right through Arcane Hide (READ: will not be reduced), and WILL NOT consume any Arcane Hide charges. This is also true of summoned/controlled units, such as Booboo, Arachna's Spiderling, Pollywog's Voodoo Wards, War Beast's Hellhounds, Puzzlebox creeps, and creeps dominated by Whispering Helm/Commanded by Ophelia. One exception is Pharoah's Mummies, which, despite technically being pets, are subject to the damage reduction and will consume charges each time they do damage to you.
• Whether or not a DoT ability consumes charges depends on several things. First off, no damage caused by a DoT ability will consume charges, even if the damage is applied in specific increments or in specific intervals (such as Hellbringer's Deathboil and Slither's Poison Spray); one huge exception to this rule is Succubus' Mesmerize - for whatever reason, each tick of damage does consume a charge. HOWEVER, if the DoT comes with an initial damage portion, such as Slither's Poison Spray, it WILL consume 1 charge on it's initial casting, as well as having the initial damage cut in half. DoT damage, while generally not subject to removing charges, also does not get cut in half by Arcane Hide.
• Status debuffs/disables of all kinds WILL NOT consume charges, even if associated with a DoT. If there is no instant-damage portion to the attack or spell that comes with the disable/DoT, then it will not consume a charge. Pollywog's Polymorph, for example, will not consume a charge, nor would Entangle (if you could cast it on yourself).
• Channeled, targeted DoT abilities (Pollywog's Magical Bindings, Electrician's Static Grip) will consume 1 charge upon initial casting, and no more after that. The one huge exception being Panda's Ultimate, which will consume a charge when first cast, and each individual hit during the channel will consume a charge as well.
• AOE DoT abilities, channeled or otherwise (Magmus' Steam Bath, Tempest's Ultimate, Zephyr's Tornado's), WILL NOT consume charges, and much like targetted DoTs, the damage is not cut in half either.
• Quick moving AOE attacks - such as Torturer's Impalement and Pharoah's Hellfire - WILL consume charges, and as such will remove Arcane Hide very very quickly if caught solo inside the effect.
• True Damage is affected by Arcane Hide. Yep. Jeraziah's Inner Light, Succubus' Heartache, Ophelia's Judgement - all of them will get cut in half by Arcane Hide.
• Secondary damage will also consume charges. Secondary damage is the damage you'll sometimes see pop up in blue numbers. This is registered as a seperate hit from the one on which it procced. If someone with a Savage Mace runs up hits you and procs the +100 damage, both the auto-attack hit and 100 damage done by the Savage Mace will consume charges. The same is true for Vindicator's Master's Incantation. The True Damage component of that spell is registered as a sperate hit than the auto-attack it travels on, and as such will also consume charges.

On Proper Utilization in a Team Scenario: The vast majority of the time I'll still keep it on myself, even in a team fight. Call me selfish, but it's up on me a good 99% of the time already and I can't be assed to discern who's receiving the bulk of the damage in the middle of a fight - all I know is that I'm usually one of the primary targets and that I'd rather already have it on myself than have to cast it after potentially being disabled first. That said, I will often throw it on the unfortunate team mate who happens to be the slow gazelle in the group as we're fleeing from the lions, in hopes that it may buffer his health enough to make it to safety. Obviously past this if you're going to have someone jumping in and sacrificing their body to start a fight you'd want to have this on them so they can soak up some of the initial damage they'll be suffering, but in the vast majority of situations I still find that I'll have it on myself.


On Tanking Towers: As will be better demonstrated in the Healing Wave discussion, DSham is quite the lane pusher, but his pushing power doesn't just end at knocking down creep waves quickly. A great use of your Arcane Hide is for tower tanking; not for yourself or a teammate, but for your creeps! Toss Arcane Hide on the creep with tower aggro and he'll tank it like a champ (well, for 5 hits anyways) giving you and the other creeps more time to whack away.

Healing Wave
Considered the bread and butter skill of DSham, though it is woefully applied by players who don't have a firm understanding of exactly how it works. This is, of course, to no discredit of said player, as the description paints a mirky picture at best of how the skill actually behaves. Despite this, when used properly, it is an incredibly potent physical damage nuke, creepwave ricer and AOE heal that will push lanes, defend towers, and sustain your team all for the low cost of 110 mana with a glorious 6 second cooldown. Let's get to understand the mechanic specifics then, shall we:

• First let's look at how the heal is actually applied. If you look at the skill description you'll see that it says "Chains between the successively closest 5 targets." What it's saying here is that the heal will hit a maximum of FIVE (5) targets, and this is including the original target for the heal. So, in short, Healing Wave will heal the target of the spell and jump to the 4 closest allies within 500 units. Note that each jump of healing wave has it's own 500 unit range (fig 1). Given the proper circumstances you could heal a target 2600 units away (600 unit initial cast range + 4x500 unit jumps). Attempting to use it as a long range heal is, of course, completely impractical, but occassionally you may heal yourself and grab a creep kill 1000 units away - now you know why that happens. Note that unlike Dazzle's Shadow Wave, the Healing Wave jumps DO NOT prioritize allied heroes over allied creeps (fig 2). The targets to which the heal will jump is merely a check of distance - the next closest ally gets the next jump of the heal. This may sound bad, but it is actually a completely necessary part to the skill functioning correctly, and we'll see why.
  (fig 1)
  (fig 2)
• The damage application, or rather getting this skill to apply as much damage as possible on the intended target is tricky, and it has everything to do with proper positioning. As you can see from the venn dia... err visual aide below (which isn't supposed to be an exact representation of hitbox vs. 180 unit radius, it's just to give you a feel of where and how damage is happening), this skill provides the potential to hit a (very) small area for 700 physical damage, on top laying down anywhere from 140-560 physical damage in a greater AOE area as well. The skill reads "Enemy units within a 180 radius will take 140 Physical damage per target." First let's get a feel for what a 180 unit radius around a target looks like by looking at the second picture below. Now this is actually a 150 unit radius, but it's the closest thing I could get, so you'll have to use your imagination for that extra 30 units - it's more just to demonstrate that 180 units is a fairly limited distance. The point is, for each jump of Healing Wave that hits an ally, it will also do 140 physical damage in a 180 unit radius around that ally. So what you get is 140 damage applied by 5 different targets. The trick is to try and get as many allied creeps or heroes around the intended target as possible so that you can hit the target with the maximum number of Healing Wave jumps.
  
• While the spell is instant cast, there is a slight delay associated with the damage as it actually takes time for the jumps to travel from target to target, however slight that time might be (which can also affect damage on a moving target). Also note that the total damage is done in seperate 140 damage increments, and thus attempting to use it on a low health Accursed is a bad idea as you'll heal him rather handily with a well placed Healing Wave.
• Also important to know is that the target type is physical, which means that you can cast it on magic immune allies. The heal, however, is magical, and thus, despite being able to cast it on magic immune allies, they won't receive the heal nor will it do damage. An interesting note about this is that casting it on a magic immune ally won't actually consume one of the 5 jumps, that is to say that you could cast it on Jeraziah with Protective Charm up and it will still jump to the 5 closest allies from Jeraziah. Also note that Healing Wave will not jump to magic immune allies.

On Proper Utilization in a Team Scenario: Though the damage potential for this spell is fantastic and while the stars can occassionally align for you to nail an enemy hero for 700 damage in the clusterfuck, your primary concern in team fights with the spell should be first and foremost to heal. If you can heal and smack a couple enemy heroes with multiple waves at the same time then great, but allies' need for health takes precedence over trying to land that perfect Healing Wave nuke. That aside you'll be spamming this early and spamming it often. 140 health isn't a ton, but 6 seconds is a short cooldown and you'll be able to use it multiple times during a fight. We're talking about a several hundred hitpoint buffer for your entire team over the course of a fight, not to mention it keeps your team healthy in the push long after the fight is over. It is importan to also try and target the person who needs the heal most with the initial heal, especially in scuffs that happen near creep waves. As we already looked at, the heal jumps on a range basis, and if it happens to jump to a hero standing right next to allied creeps, they'll likely eat the rest of the jumps as well.


On Harassing Melee Heroes in Lane: This spell is in many ways the bane of enemy melee heroes laning against you; moving into melee range to attempt a last hit is asking to eat a Healing Wave to the face. Unfortunately the only time this really shines or you really have the opportunity to do it well is during the laning phase of the game when you really don't have the manapool to be spamming it as often as you'd like. Or even when you do, they'll often only be within range of 1 or 2 allied creeps from which the wave will bounce. One of the best ways I've found to maximize damage potential is to pull the enemy creeps by drawing aggro and reversing their position with your own in the lane. This creates that distance safety buffer and melee heroes feel safer moving up to try and last hit when they don't have to run past their own creeps to do it. Lucky for you, it also makes it much easier to get multiple waves to deal damage to any unlucky patron of the last hit. Still, it isn't as great a harassment tool as I like to make it sound. To be honest you'd be better off saving your mana for healing you and your lanemate and focusing on harassing with your awesome auto-attack. That isn't to say you'll never be able to get a good Healing Wave off on an enemy in the laning phase, just that the opportunity to really smack someone with it prevents itself rarely; the very threat of it possibly happening is usually enough to make melee enemies wary, though.


On Farming Creep Waves/Pushing/Defending Lanes: You should never utilize Healing Wave to farm in the early laning phase, especially if you're baby sitting someone who genuinely needs the money more than you do. You always want to keep the lane as creep neutral as possible and thus should only use it for healing support and harassment. Not to mention that you'll have more than enough opportunities as the game goes on to get in all the farming you'll need. When the time comes to farm, however - as mentioned above - it's all about positioning to get the most out of your Healing Wave as seen in the pictures below. Note that I'm actually standing behind the enemy creep wave with as many targets inside my 180 unit damage radius as possible. In the early/mid game there will only be 3 and 4 melee creeps per wave, so positioning yourself properly is essential to getting the most of out each Healing Wave. And before anyone asks, yes that picture was staged and yes the creeps rarely line up so well, but you get point. Position yourself such that you'll take out as many creeps as possible.

Storm Cloud
A devastating and sorely misused/underutilized ultimate (very similarly out of innocent ignorance, much like Healing Wave). Like the rest of DSham's abilites, his ultimate is also low-mana cost, low-cooldown, and extremely useful for a multitude of situations. First up, let's get some things about Storm Cloud's mechanics straight:

• Cast and forget. This spell is not channeled despite the seemingly fleeting nature of the effect in conjunction with it's long duration which will often lead people to believe they're doing something wrong - you aren't. It is an instant cast and everyone hit by it will receive the full duration of the (de)buff.
• Only targets that are initially inside the radius of the effect when Storm Cloud is cast will recieve the (de)buff. Take a look at this picture. If I were to cast it right then, not only would I not recieve the buff, but even if I were to run into the area of affect after casting it I would still not recieve the buff. You MUST be inside the radius of the effect when it is cast to recieve the (de)buff.
• You DO NOT need to remain inside the initial cast radius of Storm Cloud to continue receiving Storm Cloud charges. Once you've been hit with Storm Cloud you'll continue to receive +/-1 armor per second until the duration of the (de)buff is over, at which point your armor will instantly revert back to it's normal state. At this point you may be thinking "So you mean to say that with a 2000 range instant cast spell I can put an entire team into low/negative armor before a fight even starts for a measily 100 mana?" And the answer is yes. Yes you can. Then you might come to the revalation that "Holy ****, this thing is only on a 40 second cooldown? I can basically chain the enemy into low armor over and over and over!" And the answer is still yes. Yes you can.
• Despite being listed as a physical debuff, Storm Strike WILL NOT affect magic immune enemies, and will be purged by magic immunity. In the same vein, Storm Shield WILL NOT affect magic immune allies, however gaining magic immunity after receiving the buff will not dispel it.
• Take a look at that cast range. Yep, 2000 units. You can Hail Mary with this thing.

Keeping these things in mind you will grow to love the R key with DSham. You can buff your entire team with huge armor just before initiating a team fight. With proper line of sight you can significantly drop the armor of the enemy just before a team fight. You can use your ultimate to protect your team while pushing, or to deter the enemy from trying to protect or push towers themselves, lest they find themselves in a fight with tissue paper for armor. Hell with it's piddly mana cost and relatively short cooldown you can blow it for ganks, creeping/neutraling (buffing your own armor), harassment scare tactics (people tend to fear the worst is incoming when they see it cast) - ANYTHING. It has a million and one uses and then some, and once you've got the regen and mana pool to support it you'll be using it every time the cooldown is up.


On Skill Synergy and Physical Damage: As was briefly mentioned earlier, DSham is incapable of doing any magic damage in and of himself. The DoT at the end of Entangle is hysical damage and the damage done by Healing Wave is physical. More importantly, the vast majority of the damage you'll be doing will be from your auto attack, which, as we also already briefly looked into, scales quite well as the game goes on thanks to incredible primary stat gain. The important part here is that Storm Cloud has great synergy with all of it, because for every target you hit with Storm Cloud you are multiplicitively stacking your net damage output on that target for a rather long duration.


On Target Prioritization in a Team Scenario: It's pretty hard to mess up using this spell in a team fight; either you can hit the broad side of a barn or you can't. Whether or not to prioritize your team mates or the enemy with it is situational - in an ideal world you'd be hitting all 10 heroes (or at least all the heroes involved in the fight) with it, but in practice that isn't a realistic expectation, nor should you hold onto the spell in hopes that you may get the opportunity to nail everyone. Depending on which heroes each team is comprised of and the amount of physical damage that is being thrown around it could go either way. A good rule of thumb is that if you're team is dealing mostly physical damage then you should prioritize hitting as many enemies as possible with it in fights. If you're receiving an overwhelming amount of physical damage then you should preemptively use it on your own team as often as necessary. Truth be told you'll be doing both from time to time regardless of the hero makeup as fights won't always be 5v5, and your best tool for those situations is discretion. In any team fight, use it early, use it often. Blowing it halfway through a fight and getting all 5 enemies with it won't be nearly as helpful as hitting 3 of their heroes with it at the very start of a fight. The (de)buff is LONG and grows in power as it goes.


On Ganking: An important point to remember is not to get too trigger happy with it (and people can be, given it's glorious 2000 cast range), especially while ganking. A well timed Storm Cloud can often be the difference between the enemy dying or making a narrow escape with 20 HP, but you have to make sure it's just that - well timed. Only cast it once you're beyond reasonably certain that either you or your team mates will be able to get their disables/slows off before the intended target decides it's time to leave. Blow it too early and they may turn tail before you're in position to get the kill.


On Staff of the Master: SotM will increase the radius of the spell to 800 (an enormous 1600 unit diameter for the effect) and the duration to 30 seconds (targets will be at +/-30 armor by the end of the duration). As much as I love this spell I still don't make SotM a huge priority as far as items goes. It's definitely viable and I'll definitely get a SotM from time to time, but your core of mana regeneration items/astrolabe takes precedence. There is, however, no reason you cannot rice one out in the later game.

_________________________________________________







Skill Build

I've always been a proponent of the fact that skill builds can be flexible based on the circumstances, but DSham's is pretty rigid on the whole, as there are two core things you want as soon as possible.

Entangle/Healing Wave
Entangle/Healing Wave
Healing Wave
Entangle
Entangle (rank 3)
Healing Wave
Healing Wave*

Your first 7 levels will always look like this. Whether Entangle or Healing Wave is taken at level 1 is dependent how many disables you have available at the fight for the rune. If you're solo pubbing it chances are you'll be the only person checking for the rune anyways, and Entangle will be taken on the off chance that someone on the other team is as well. If you can slow them you can close distance to the rune first and/or haul ass back to your lane away from the 320 movespeed guy who got DD first. If you're checking the rune with Torturer and Magmus then Healing Wave can be a great potential 240 damage nuke to grab bloodlust with.


The two core things that are being rushed here are Entangle Rank 3 and Healing Wave Rank 4. Entangle Rank 3 is gotten ASAP as it will provide you with both the 66% movement slow and the 1 second stun; Rank 4 is a non-priority (+15 manacost, +48 physical damage on the DoT, -2 second cooldown) and should be taken only be taken after you've finished out the rest of your skills. Healing Wave Rank 4 is next on the docket as it will give you the maximum of 5 jumps, as well as the 140 damage per wave, greatly increasing it's damage output; it also brings it to a sweet 6 second cooldown.

Arcane Hide/Storm Cloud
Arcane Hide/Storm Cloud
Arcane Hide/Storm Cloud
Arcane Hide/Storm Cloud (Rank 2)
Arcane Hide
Arcane Hide*
Entangle*
Stats
Storm Cloud*

Once you've gotten Entangle Rank 3 and Healing Wave Rank 4 the only decision you really have to make is when you want to take your ultimate. If you've already started team fights and/or ganking then I would recommend taking it right away, however if you're still pretty deep into laning or pushing then it would be more beneficial to start ranking up Arcane Hide. Note that in any scenario you should have Storm Cloud Rank 2 at level 11, because in any practical game you'll have started getting into serious fights long before then anyways. Entangle Rank 4 is taken as the last of your core skills, as by level 14 you should have the mana pool to support it's lower cooldown and increased manacost; the lower cooldown is always nice to have regardless. From there it's just the final rank of Storm Cloud and then stats for the rest of the game.

Itemization

Oh boy, the controversial part of every guide. Let me preface the item section by saying that this isn't hellbent on being the most optimal competitive itemset ever, nor will I offer or suggest a completely concrete item build. All of this is completely and entirely subjective to the individual game being played. A great deal of factors ranging from player skill to hero makeup to personal preference go into the item build. On top of that, Demented Shaman is an oustandingly flexibile hero as far as items go as there are a ton of items that will suit him well and help him be a better hero, and I'll make sure to look at as many of them as are suitable.


With that said, I do have an overarching theme to the majority of my personal item choices, and that is sustainability, or more accurately, mana sustainability. Mana = health for Demented Shaman, and as long as you have the former you'll have the latter.






Starting Out

1. The riskiest of the starting builds, this will net you no additional health or mana. This build does, however, provide you with the best base damage, some EHP for both you and your lanemate in the form of AR, as well as hard mana regeneration. If you feel comfortable in your ability to perform well with your lanemate and can conserve mana early for when it counts then this is a great build to start with, and one I'll often do in pubs as in the majority of them I'll be building a Nome's Wisdom at some point (NOTE: A great alternative to 2x Mana Potions is 1x Minor Totem and 1x Mana Potion, more stats never hurt anyone).
2. Pretender's Crowns are a rather odd item to start with in a lot of situations because of their odd gold cost that makes them hard to stack with other items. They're also horrificly gold inefficient compared to totems. That said if someone else on your team bought and shared a courier with you and you want the all around stats and will use them to finish your bracers then I guess that's one way to do it. The 4 mana potions are there to let you go spam happy until you can grab some scarabs.
3. As we looked at earlier, Demented Shaman starts with an objectively small health pool, and starting out with crushing claws (which will later combine into Fortified Bracers) is a great way to help remedy that. The Guardian Ring is taken for some extra early armor, and will later combine into a Ring of the Teacher with a Scarab from the Outpost.
4. Occassionally I'll see people start with just as scarab and some totems, which is interesting, not bad, just interesting. Personally I don't do it, or I'll only grab the Guardian Ring part first because I really like to have that to combine into a Ring of the Teacher, and Scarabs are cheap and can be gotten from the Outpost. Either way, Sometimes I'll end up without a Ring and I'll just have 2x Scarabs, which also provide good regen.
5. The Tryhard starters build. In a serious game you may find yourself buying at least one part of the courier as well as the first set of wards, which will leave you with limited options for stats and regen items.
6. The selfish courier build. Occassionally I'll take a courier (and not immediately share it /o\ I'm a horrible person; in pubs I have had people using my courier to run them things, only to leave it there in the middle of the lane as the other team laughs and kills it) as well as crushing claws. You get decent early stats and if you're able to sustain your mana pool well enough you never really have to leave your lane to go back and buy.

The overarching point here is that there's quite the multitude of viable starting builds that you can run with Demented Shaman. It mostly boils down to preference and familiarity, with both the players involved and how well you know you'll faire with a given set of items. Again, none of these are concrete, feel free to mix and match or do your own completely different thing. There's a ton of combinations that I've used that aren't included here. Take them with a grain of salt, or as brain food for your own build.

Items Which are Never Ever in Any Practical 5v5 Situation Acceptable to Start With



NEVER. Foregoing the point that this is a bad item to start mid with anyways, the only reason I could see someone taking it first is if they were soling mid. You should only ever be soloing middle in the most dire of pubs where you're the only practical candidate (which means your team failed at picking already), but in the event that you are you want stats for damage to better last hit and deny. Odds are you'll be facing off against another ranged hero and will rarely be spamming any of your spells for any kind of damage, really. And with your pitiful base health pool, one good ranged disable and you could give up Bloodlust easily.



I mean, I really don't know how to explain how bad of starting item marchers are other than that you're giving up SO MUCH in the way of potential stats and regen for an item that will serve no immediate purpose in the confines of the early laning phase. Starting with marchers is a picardfacepalm.gif.

Early Game





My item build by the end of the early game (depending on what I started with) will start to look something like this. The 2x Fortified Bracers are taken ASAP because while I believe that in most pub games you don't need to stack HP hardcore thanks to the EHP you can provide yourself, getting yourself above non-existant HP first is generally a good idea.


The 2x Scarabs will be bought from the Outpost during the laning phase for mana sustainability, and because I'll very likely be building a Nome's Wisdom as one of my first core items; one will be used for the Ring of the Teacher, the other for a Great Arcana.

The Boot Debate
Oh dear, another controversial question, and yet again I have no concrete answer for you. If you're participating in any organized game or against opponent who don't just tunnel vision the closest red circle, but instead prioritize, you'll most certainly have an enormous target painted on you. It's pretty easy to tell early on, and I would definitely, in those situations, get Steamboots and leave them on strength for the duration of the entire game. Leaving it on strength with provide you with another 228 heath which is a fairly large amount in the early game, and at the very least +6 AS/+6 damage/78 mana/+0.24 mana/sec. My only qualm with Steamboots is that you'll never have unit walking. Occassionally you'll lose kills to some pro herowalking done by the creeps, or you'll find yourself having to take a half screen piss around some creeps lined up like it's Gettysburg or something. A pro would say never to get into those situations to begin with and I'm sure that argument has merit, but I'm not as pro as I'd like to be and these things happen.


Enhancer Marchers, on the other side of the coin, provide you with no primary stats, and instead only damage and attack speed. Believe it or not I still believe these to be a viable choice and one that I take a good bit of the time. You rely heavily on your auto attack for damage, and the (what is huge then) 30 attack speed greatly increases your damage output during that first 4 seconds of Entangle. It also offers situational survivability in the way of unitwalking, which we've already gone over above. The 10% speed boost is also nice for getting into range to get that Entangle off on a runner.


Really in most pub games it's preference. Tryhard(tm) competitive players will tell you Steamboots 100% of the time, but in pubs I'd say use discretion to decide which of the two will net you the best benefit.

Always awesome to have. That small burst of health/mana can often be the difference between life and death. Can be gotten instead of a Fortified Bracer or in addition to them.









Homecoming stones are a given for any hero. It's always a good idea to always have them on hand and you should for the rest of the game. The provide you extra mobility as well as survivability. Also being the Tryhard support player you are, you'll also be tasked with laying down wards as often as possible. Having vision of key strategic points on the map is an enormous advantage, and can literally win games in and of itself. Wards of Revelation can be used for counter-warding and for catching a pesky hero with invisibility.






Mid Game


During the midgame is where we'll really start to buildup our core of sustainability items. You'll notice a running theme here, that all of these items have passive mana regeneration on them. I shoot for 150% at least, but prefer to have over 200%. As we've already discussed, you'll be spamming your spells like a Demented Shaman should, and more thus more important than just mana total is mana sustainability. You really, really need the regen. The more you're able to spam your spells the longer you can stay in the field.


Also note that I'm not suggesting you get all of these, just that all of these are all viable core mid-game items to get.

Nome's: 2500 gold.................Stormspirit: 2800 gold


My personal favorite mid-game item build. I'll rarely finish a game without both of them. The items look terribly like pubbie hurf blurf but it isn't with out good reason that I take both.


First off, Nome's Wisdom is just beyond awesome for Demented Shaman. It literally has everything. +31 damage, +10 attack speed, +130 mana, +0.4 base mana regen, and +75% passive mana regen. Let's not forget the best part: The aura. On top of +1 hard mana regen and +4 armor, everyone in range of the aura heals themselves for 25% of the mana cost of spells/items. Hell even if that last part wasn't an aura it would still be awesome, because as we already know, a good Demented Shaman is spamming his spells, and the healing done by Nome's can total up to several thousand in a decent length game just for you alone, let alone your team.


The Stormspirit really gets less credit than it deserves, and is an incredibly functional item for a lot of intelligence heroes. Yes I know it's rather light on stats, but hey +10 intelligence is +10 damage, another 130 mana, another 0.4 base mana regeneration, and it provides +125% passive mana regeneration as well, which qualifies it as part of our core of regeneration items. The two fun parts of the item are the +25 base movespeed (which takes your above average speed hero and really makes him above average speed, even better for chasing) and for the active ability. The active ability disables the target and makes them invulnerable for 2.5 seconds, and the little known part, or at least the under appreciated part, is that you can use it on not only enemy targets, but on yourself as well. As we discussed earlier, you'll often have quite the target painted on you, being the "squishy intelligence healer" you are. In the team fight if you find that you're quickly being targeted, the option to make yourself invulnerable will accomplish two things: One, it will make you untargetable for nukes, and two, the other team has the option of holding onto their nukes and waiting out the 2.5 seconds while the rest of your team is ripping into them, or moving on to other targets. I've found that the later usually occurs, and at the very least it can cause some disconnect and confusion. Otherwise, it's great as a general disable, an interrupt, and a tool for slowing down people chasing you or people running away from you. It really is a fantastically useful item in most pub games. The only oddity about the item is that you combine a +50% mana regen item with a +100% mana regen item, and come out the other end with 125% mana regen item, but I suppose that's just me being a little selfish.


The great part about the both of these items is that you'll never need more than 1000 gold in your wallet at one time to get all the pieces. This makes it easy to farm, even through the occasional death that may occur in team fights.







Hellflower: 5025 gold


A good alternative, and one that I run from time to time is the Hellflower. It's the ultimate combination of damage and regeneration for intelligence heroes, offering +60 damage, +30 attack speed, +260 mana, +.8 base mana regen, and +225% passive mana regeneration. It's active ability will silence the target for 5 seconds, and cause them to take 20% of all damaged caused while the silence was active as true damage (a mini Cursed Ground, if you will). It is the best bang for the buck for intelligence heroes as far as DPS vs. gold spent goes, the only draw back being that it offers you little if any benefit to your survivability - no health, no extra healing, no armor, and the silence, while it may occasionally save you, is certainly no disable. The main reason I've taken this item in games is as a counter to specific heroes on the other team. For example, say Vindicator is on the other team, and no one on your team has a reliable silence, throw this on vindicator at the start of the fight and you've given your team 5 seconds to spam the hell out of their abilities and get him down. Also note the massive 900 unit range on it. If tempest and his port key ulti are becoming a problem you can stay way out of the fight with this and silence him and soon as he comes in, etc etc.


This item also shares the same farmability as the above items; you'll never need more than 900 gold in your pocket to get all the pieces, and you continue to reap the benefit of each Greater Arcana as you're building it.







Kuldra's Sheepstick: 5675 gold


What isn't there to love about Kuldra's Sheepstick? It's a buyable 3.5 second disable, and despite being expensive on the whole, it's well worth it's money. You get +35 damage, +10 attack speed, +190 health, +455 mana, +1.4 base mana regeneration, and +200% mana regeneration on top of the aforementioned 3.5 second 800 range instant-cast disable. The best part about this item is that 100% mana regeneration and the disable pop out of thin air - there is no recipe to buy, it's an autocombine item, and yet you end up with these two great bonuses. The item as a whole is much greater than the sum of it's parts, and for that it is awesome.


The *only* pitfall of this item, at least for rushing it in the midgame as your only regeneration item, is that it is hard to farm for. You will need 2700 gold and later 2100 gold in your wallet at once to buy the necessary parts, and this can be difficult to pull off if you're dying occasionally in team fights or if you can't find time farm out some lanes in between defending, pushing and team fighting. People attempting to farm it out will often often go off on their own to get better farm as well, and really as primary support you should never leave your team's side to go item farming. Leave that for carries.







Nullstone: 5175 gold


The Nullstone is another item that's never a bad choice for Demented Shaman, and addresses some of his survivability problems will remaining useful for him on the whole. You're getting +15 damage, +15 attack speed, +285 health, +195 mana, +0.6 base mana regen, +150% passive mana regen, as well as +6 health regeneration to take the edge off. If you find that you're up against a team with a lot of single target disable and they seem to be saving some specifically for you then this item can be quite the lifesaver, as it blocks a surprising amount of disables. It's not necessarily hard to farm for either, and you get the benefit of a Sustainer while farming for it.







Sacrificial Stone: 5050 Gold


Personally the Sacrificial Stone is my least favorite item to get for Demented Shaman as a core regeneration item. It certainly does it job as far as sustainability and survivability go and the bonuses scream support, but Demented Shaman is, if anything, a very offensive minded support character, and without any raw stats the Sac Stone offers you nothing in the way of offense, which is poor for a character whom relies mainly on their auto-attack as a source of damage. It is relatively easy to farm for, however, and if you have your heart set on it for the bonuses then it certainly isn't a terrible choice, it just wouldn't be my first one.

Impractical Mid-Game Items Which are Generally a Waste of Gold



The Restoration Stone is an item with terrible stats for it's item cost and an active ability that does you little to no good as all of your abilities have short cooldowns to begin with.



It offers you no primary stats aside from raw mana, which you have no use for at all as you already have ridiculous intelligence gain, and thus it offers you no additional survivability. Not to mention that you don't need burst mana regeneration, you need passive mana regeneration which will sustain your constant mana use, and this item only gives you 3.33 mana/second if you're blowing it as soon as the cooldown comes up.

Late Game Luxury Items


You'll be well into the game by the time you're getting any of these items, and now that you've established some sense of sustainability mana-wise that let's you stay in the field as long as necessary while spamming your heart out you can start building some luxury items... if you happen to get the gold for them.


Also keep in mind that all of the mid-game items make good late-game items as well. If you picked up a Hellflower for your first mana sustainability item, but want a Sheepstick next that's perfectly fine. This is merely a list of items that I wouldn't get until after having first gotten one of the items from the mid-game list, at which point the game would probably have moved into the late-game stage.

or
Astrolabe: 2306 gold.........................Nome's: 2500 gold


An Astrolabe? As late game luxury? Isn't this like, the core support item? Yes and no. On a hero that is completely mana independent, such as Plague Rider, then this would easily be the first of the core items I would grab, but with Demented Shaman you already have a spammable AOE heal, and grabbing items to sustain the heal you already have takes precedence over another heal on a 45 second cooldown. The stats, armor and passive AOE health regen are nice, and the active is yet another great heal to throw into the fray, but under no circumstances would I take another drain on my mana pool before items that let me sustain my mana pool for my primary heal. However, after having obtained said mana sustainability items, if no one else on my team has built it, the Astrolabe would be my next option. Cheap and effective. What isn't there to like about it?


Nome's Wisdom is mentioned again just as a reminder, because if you didn't pick it up in the mid-game, it's never too late to grab one. Yes, it's that awesome for you.







SotM: 4300 gold


Staff of the Master is a fair late game option. It takes your ultimate, increases the radius to the point that you'd have to be a blind to miss with it, and increases the duration another 6 seconds to make it that much more potent. We're talking +/-30 armor at the end of it's duration. On top of that it's an all around good stat item. +390 health, +280 mana, +0.4 base mana regen, and +10 damage and attack speed. Really I guess it's up to how effectively you think you can put it to use or just how effective your ult has been in the game up to that point. It's by no means necessary, but isn't a bad choice either.







Frostwolf Skull: 6150 gold


The Frostwolf Skull is generally one of the more looked down upon items in the game, and qualitatively with good reason. Despite this, it's actually an awesome item for Demented Shaman if you have the time left in the game to farm one out. You're already great at chasing/kiting with Entangle, and with a Frostwolf Skull you become Godlike at it. You're essentially buying Arachna's rank 3 Webbed Shot, as your auto attack will now slow the target by 30%, on top of a fuckload of stats. This item will net you +675 health, +525 mana, +1 base mana regen, and +25 damage/attack speed. And while the stats certainly are nice, the main reason you take it is for the movement slow. 30% is a lot. When this stacks with entangle you can essentially bring people to a crawl.







Puzzlebox: 2750 (5350) gold


The Puzzlebox is an undervalued item that sees little use, thanks mostly to it's ambiguity. People don't really know what it does nor that it has ridiculously awesome damage potential. I blame most of that on the fact that, fully ranked, it is relatively expensive, and people who do know that it summons creeps don't want to spend gold to have to deal with microing minions. Regardless, this is a good item for you. The fully ranked creeps do great damage, move extremely quickly, and need little micromanagement. On top of that, together they will burn more mana off of a target than Magebane and the melee creep provides a 1000 unit Reveal range for any invisible heroes that may lurk close enough. Past the creeps the item itself offers you some nice stats, giving you +266 health, +312 mana, +0.96 base mana regen, and +24 damage.







Frostfield Plate: 4700 gold


Frostfield Plate is an interesting item. I like it, but I'm not crazy about it. It's relatively cheap for a late-game item, but it still isn't easy to farm for thanks to the Acolyte Staff component. It offers you no actual HP, but gives you EHP in the form of armor - a lot of armor. The active ability is great both for chasing and escaping, or even just laying down some extra damage and disable in the middle of the fray. On top of that you're getting +390 mana, +1.2 base mana regen and +30 damage. It's definitely not bad.







Barrier Idol: 3653 gold


Depending on the amount of magic damage nukes on the other team, a Barrier Idol may be in order. If there are a lot of magical nukes, you'll at some point want to at least spend the 400 gold for Mystic Vestments, if not the 2050 gold for Shaman's Headdress. But as support you may find yourself tasked with the building of the Barrier Idol for it's active ability, which when used will grant your teammates a shield that will eat the next 400 magic damage - a great way to initiate a fight against a magic heavy team.







Shrunken Head: 3900 gold


The Shrunken Head is another one of those items that's never a bad decision on any hero. If you find yourself being constantly focused and disabled down, building a Shrunken Head can vastly increase your survivability. For it's duration you'll be immune to the vast majority of disables out there, as well as to magic damage. On top of that you get some extra health and damage, both useful stats for you.

We Clearly Won But They're Not Conceding and I've got Gold Laying Around So Meh Why Not Items
Or: Despite being "intelligence hero items," these are never acceptable to waste gold on while it counts.



Codex: 2850 (8250) gold


You've been supporting the whole game like a good team player. Go killsteal your face off.







Barbed Armor: 2200 gold


Hilariously effective against stupid people (though there is something to be said for using it as a deterrent).







Tablet of Command: 2200 gold


Why don't you come on out of the fountain so we can talk this over...

Itemization Conclusion


I would remind everyone again that all of the itemization portion of the guide is subjective, and everyone has their own opinion on what's best. Given the nearly limitless number of situations and hero makeups that you could find yourself in I would argue that it's even impossible to qualify a "best" item build for 100% of the situations. These are all merely suggestions that are meant to be taken with a grain of salt. That being said I do stand by my sustainability style of itemization, and believe it to be a fundamental necessity to playing Demented Shaman well, which items you use to get that sustainability is up to you.

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Friends and Foes

In reality all 4 of your team mates are your friends and all 5 of the guys on the other team are you foes. Every hero, in their own way, is a great ally to have or bad enemy to face, and like the rest of this guide, just how much of a boon or bane they are is subjective to the situation at hand. These are just a couple example of heroes which are, on paper (as well as in practice, if in the right hands), either very good or very bad for you.






Cool Kids Club





These fellows are your compatriots in the war on armor and your skills synergize (God I'm starting to hate that word) nicely because of it. But seriously a good Pestilence combined with a good ult by you and which ever poor sucker gets Swarmed first will die a painful and embarrassingly quick death - the same can go for Panda's flick and Predator's ulti. Soul Stealer's aura stacks with your ulti as well, and it becomes a mass armor casualty for the other team. Armadon (I know, LOLARMADON) is actually one of your best friends in the gank, having a spammable slow which includes a stacking armor debuff that stacks with your armor debuff as well.





You may have been wondering why I didn't mention these in the items section. Personally I don't believe that you should be spending your gold on either of them as there's bound to be a melee hero in your lineup for which they would be better served. In any situation, both of these items will give armor debuffs to the enemy, and thus both are your friend. Your team would be wise to capitalize on them.






Uncool Kids Club





Jeraziah is the only real hard counter to Demented Shaman, what with his ultimate rendering you completely incapable of doing damage to the other team for 7 seconds. In addition you won't be able to debuff whichever of his teammates has protective charm with Entangle or Storm Cloud. Despite that you can still heal heal your team and Storm Cloud/Entangle the rest of his team, so it's not all bad. Hammerstorm isn't really a counter so much as he is a nuisance, as his Galvanize skill will temporarily give all his nearby team mates a sizable chunk of extra armor. I don't include Vindicator here because you aren't a chain caster as much as you are a "use my skills every time the cooldown is up" caster, and thus his aura really doesn't stop you from maximizing your healing potential in a fight.

____________________





Closing Notes and Thanks

I am by no means a HoN/DotA pr0 - I've never even played a game of DotA in my life; my only experience with it before HoN was laughing at that Basshunter video - I just enjoy playing Demented Shaman often, saw some peculiarities and decided to spend a little too much (way too much) time in practice mode exploring mechanics, and out came this guide. And despite my never having actually played competitively I do follow the competitive scene and I'm a quick learner, so while this may be a terribly pubbie hurf blurfy guide I think most of the subjective advice is sound for all levels of play. Also note that I solo pub most of the game's I play, on occasion with a friend or two, and as such I don't have a 2253 PSR and 8.1:1 KDR if that's how you want to measure the worth of the information here. My one hope for anyone whom suffered through this tl;dr guide is that they came out the other end without a new found need for depression medication, and that they learned something or perhaps gleaned some insight into Demented Shaman along the way and will be the better for it.


Thanks to S2 for making a great game. Thanks to all the DotA guys for inspiring them to make it. Thanks to Rokman's Blood Hunter guide for inspiring the general aesthetic of my own. And thank you guys for reading it and giving me feedback.