Introduction
Most of the guides that I've skimmed through on the forums are pretty bad, and as this was the second most popular choice in the poll I've chosen him to be the next hero I write a guide for. He's a top level hero, nerfed subtly by the item nerfs to bloodstone and heart, but still 100% viable especially in HoN.
AoE damage/heal skill
Deals massive aoe damage
Executes a target at ~50% health
Strong range and animation
Strong solo
Likely to be targeted due to aoe abilities
Weaker in lanes, still viable however
Low movespeed
Requires quite a bit of gear
Skills
Judgement is Soul Reaper's bread and butter, it allows him to simultaneously heal your allies while dealing damage to the enemies. It has a very short cooldown, allows you to spam it during team fights.
Withering Presence is your main source of aoe damage next to Judgement, allowing you to deal massive and crippling damage to opponents if they allow you to remain living. The AoE is big enough that it should encompass all enemy heroes during team fights. This when combined with your first ability is extremely deadly, and one of the reasons you're focused during fights.
Inhuman nature would be far more useful if you didn't have basically a single ability to spam. It doesn't really refill your mana during team fights, which is why it's not very useful, my skill build and views on this skill is probably going to be the most controversial subject of the guide.
Demonic Execution is what makes you so deadly to heroes during team fights. It allows you to basically assassinate someone once they get past a certain threshold, which turns the fight into a 4v5 right off the bat. Similar to Axe's cull, this is however reduced by magic immunity, but easily able to kill someone much sooner than Axe.
Skill Build
1. Judgement
2. Withering Presence
3. Judgement
4. Withering Presence
5. Judgement
6. Demonic Execution
7. Judgement
8. Withering Presence
9. Withering Presence
10. Stats
11. Demonic Execution
12-15. Stats
16. Demonic Execution
17-21. Stats
22-25. Inhuman Nature
Inhuman Nature does help you lane early on, but it provides far little use beyond that. To use it properly you have to constantly push the lane, or simply not take advantage of the mana you get back. The aura harasses a bit in the lane, especially against people who completely rely on bottle or tangos, since they have absolutely nothing to counter-act the degen the aura provides. While it isn't game breaking, it does make a difference if they decide to tower dive or chase you. Stats can be taken just about any time over aura, as they provide a hitpoint boost and mana boost, in addition to regen.
Item Builds
Basic starting items
These items are pretty standard, minor stats in favor of regeneration, mana battery plugging in to power supply later on. You can switch it up if you want, however, you'll basically be working towards the same things. You can sacrifice regen for stats to help last hitting or survival, but this is what I'd buy especially against spammers who tend to solo middle.
Early Game
This should be your goal at the end of early game, moving into mid game with a strong amount of mana regen and base mana. Int treads provide 16 intelligence, where as you only get 10 stregnth. This is why we buy a bracer instead of a null, and run our treads as intelligence, especially during the laning phase. As we move into mid game, our treads switch to provide hitpoints rather than damage and mana. TPs are very important, as Necrolyte has an instant cast heal/nuke plus a finishing move/stun to ward off tower divers. Power supply is just an overall strong item, and has starting item plugs in everything you bought that isn't consumable.
Mid game
Your goal through mid game is just a few items, giving you a potent disable, and covering just about any mana issues you might have. While at this stage in the game you're unable to be one of the first into the fights, you have enough hitpoints to tank quite a bit of damage especially when being healed over and over. As with the earlier builds, you should always carry a tp scroll, as it can save your life and save your allies/base. Mobility is key, and while you may say 'why not buy travels?', the current stat bonus/cost of treads is TOO good to pass up.
End game
A staff of the master upgrades your ult, allowing you to execute an opponent with ~half health. This is useful for obvious reasons, but with the change to the item, it's much easier to build and every piece is beneficial to what you need(hitpoints and mana). This should be just what you need to end the game, however, if you find yourself with excess cash you can buy more items.
Tiered-out items
Progression should go BKB>Shivas>Travels>heart, however heart is a pretty whatever slot, you can get anything you feel you need. Mock of brilliance isn't bad if you aren't being focused, since it provides more aoe to your already super aoe skillset. The attack damage is always nice, at this stage you're dealing a lot of damage via auto attacks especially to squishy backlines.
Starting the game
Choosing a lane
In almost all situations you'll be heading mid to solo, however, unlike most heroes that exclusively solo mid this hero doesn't have to! He can play in an aggressive lane, generally one used to generate kills, and as such he is useful with a variety of heroes. Most kills you get with this hero will be off the mistakes of others in the beginning stages of the game, they go for you but didn't realize how strong or effective your kiting and healing would be. In my opinion this hero is best at soloing middle, and in rare occasions where you have a jungling hero, he can solo your strong lane(bottom for sentinel, top for scourge).
Scouting for the rune
This is important, but this hero has very negligible early game damage and no disables, so he can either be used as bait or simply as damage/heals if a skirmish should happen near the runes. If you're soloing middle, double damage or illusion runes should be taken as they heavily increase your ability to cs. That is unless you have a very strong lane that could first blood with the rune.
Beginning of the laning phase and controlling the runes
I will never suggest a bottle for this hero, and as such, you gain far less benefit from runes. This doesn't mean you can leave the opponent to grab them over and over, as this will make both laning harder and generate kills for the opposing team via easier ganks. The runes are best controlled with a crow, as this completely negates their ability to grab a rune and also gives you more experience since you don't have to leave the lane. You should basically last hit as much as possible, harassing with heal when you are in a position to snag multiple creeps and dink opponents. If you have the lane in good equilibrium near your tower, generally where you are atop the hill and your opponent is on the bottom of it, this should be disregarded as you're in a heavily favored position over them. Harassing should be done against certain heroes, generally ones you don't want to farm, or want to leave in crippled hitpoint range for ganks or solo kills. Some examples would be valkyrie(as shown in my video), or arachna. And as with this build we'll be leveling aura, it's important that you stand in range of it to clip them, however you shouldn't compromise your positioning too much to achieve this.
Early game
Item Progression
Early game item progression is pretty simple, and varies depending on your lane. As you have a mana battery, and all of the items minus the recipe necessary to finish the power supply, you can finish it as soon as possible if you're in a lane with a spell spammer. However, in a lane against arachna, this is probably not the best idea. You should prioritize your treads, as it's one of the most useful early game items in it's current state, providing +16 damage and massive mana, while doubling as a form of hitpoints later(or early) in the game. After treads it's generally useful to finish your bracer, then work towards either power supply and your mana tube. If you find you need room in your inventory for a better item, it's a very common strategy to drop your branches near your tower.
This does two things: freeing up your inventory, and leaving your items close to your tower in case you finish an item and once again have inventory slots. It's pretty common, and if you've ever wondered why pro players leave items like branches near their tower, it's to leave them in range to pick up should they have free item slots. Freed either by completing recipes or using consumables.
Ganking
Soul Reaper moves very slow, having a base movespeed of 290(10 under average), as such most of his ganks will be done via counter ganks by utilizing the TP scrolls. Notice allies getting tower dived bottom? TP, heal, and ult something ASAP. While you can run down there and gank, it's generally very noticeable, but if you KNOW some key area doesn't have wards don't be afraid to exploit this fact.
Maximizing regen and manabattery/powerupply
Once you finish treads, you have the unique ability to (more easily) boost your regenerative abilities. While this probably sounds foreign and complicated, it really isn't, and I'll explain. Let's say with strength treads on you have 500/1000 health, and with agi treads it switches to 400/800. Assuming that we have a flask which heals 400, we obviously will only get to 900/1000 with strength treads on. As such, if we switch to agi treads and then flask we will be at 100%, allowing us to switch to strength treads with full hitpoints. This can be done with mana as well, and more notably with your power supply. Have 10 charges? Switch to agi treads(lowers your mana/hitpoints as low as possible) before you use it to reap as much benefit from it as you can.
Why does this work? Well, when you add hitpoints or mana via items or otherwise, you keep the same % hitpoints and mana, so by lowering your total before using any items that would heal you, you effectively increase your % to a higher amount than you would of if just normally regenerating. This can be done also by dropping your items in the ground/chicken, or any other method of lowering your total hitpoint/mana before healing.
Team pushes
Either offensive or defensive, you should be at every team fight. You're far too useful at this stage in the game(~7-11) to not be in team fights, as you can literally be a 2k swing in damage with a single spell. In comparison to other heroes, all depending on how well you farmed, you should be pretty beefy at this stage in the game. With strength treads on you should be tilting around 1.1-1.2k hitpoints, making you one of the highest health heroes(especially int heroes) in the game. This doesn't mean you can run into the fight, balls to the wall, but you can take quite a bit of punishment. Depending on your team lineup, if you have a strong early game, you should try to push down towers as you're able to heal all of your allies and creeps while subsequently damaging all of your opponents in range. This gives you alone very strong pushing power, but also doubles as defending power, which is why I stress TPs as extremely important early on. You can defend towers, or show up to pushes near your own towers, and gain a very early economy advantage simply by knocking down their towers and keeping your own up.
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