General Discussion[Discussion] Shadow Demon

for me

combo it with stun hero like lina, SK, roam a lot
against PL, avoid at all cost imo
phantom lancer
since it's 5, brown boots? mana boots? wand?
no

Don't play like me.

http://dotabuff.com/players/117998063/matches?date=&faction=&hero=shadow-demon&lobby_type=&game_mode=&region=&duration=

he is popular, usually ppl pick him to pair with mirana to set up mirana's arrow, it's similar to bane + mirana

basically in laning stage you'll be using Q then W (it works while disrupted). depending on your team and your opp you may want to start moving forward to the disrupted so you can bodyblock him

he is item dependant at all.. you'll be fine with an arcane
the rest depends on the game actually.. eul's if your team has some 'skillshot' disables (mirana arrow, kunkka torrent and ship, etc). this way you can disrupt one and euls another, making it easier to initiate or to win time for you team to come

if its not the case i think you couldn't do wrong going for a force staff

boots > wand > arcane > eul's/force/whatever you team needs

i think there is not a thumb rule for building a SD, it will depend on the game
but if you play with stack i think you should try the yolo wombo combo with mirana

and perhaps do this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tbZzyhodKI

lolololol

Buy a medallion, land a disrupt->soul catcher->ult and youll be able to solo kill any hero in the game.

If you can predict your opponent and know you can normally catch someone alone that doesn't have an amazing escape ability, that's when you go him if you want him to shine. He can also be a counter pusher/siege hero if all else fails or you just don't want to play the better options. He's very powerful in ganks, while kind of mediocre in team fights if you can't catch the enemy carry before bkb goes off.

Skillbuild?

Q First point.......absolutely everything else is situational ;p

Max Q first if you have a good target for illusioning
Max W first if your team has good gank potential and enemy team is summonless/illusionless
Max E if your team needs counter-push/siege power(hell I'm still on the fence about getting this skill at all if you don't need those 2)
R asap.

Though I won't call myself a pro with him. So take it with a grain of salt and give it some of your own mileage /shrug

I like to combo him with Luna. His ulti is not that great, but against heroes without blink (Ex: naix, ursa, jugger) is quite good for kiting while they are immune to spells.

Also he is good at saving allies, but I'm a bit slower, so usually I'm too late with saving disruptions. The only "safe saving" I do, is disrupt when an ally eats a Mirana arrow.

don't play him, I reckon. he is a niche hero even in the pro scene and in pubs, well, look at his winrate

Look at what you got in your team, if you are setting for high amount of bursts go for Soul Catcher, else go for shadow poison. Do not max Disruption first in any situation, really.. even against AM or PL.

Glass cannon support basically. You have to play reasonably aggressive and with good communication. He has high starting damage and utility but is vulnerable throughout the game. You can farm jungle camps by stacking them and killing them with poison in your downtime, which may or may not help a lot. Probably the best hero to have around during a smoke gank, as his initiation is perfect for just such a gank. His counterinitiation is good too, as you can banish stunned heroes and draw the player attention away from them.
Force staff is great for removing yourself from combat, and Drum can fill some of your cracks as well. Blink is more of a luxury. Atos is good survivability.

Thanks for all the input so far, really enjoying this.

Last time i picked SD, we had: Invoker, SF, Jakiro.
Seems pritty solid to pick a SD as Jakiro will simply Ice Path into Distruption while SF gets the kill or even Invoker can use sunstrike/meteor into the IcePathed+SoulCatchered enemies.
What really happened: SF was too busy with farming, so we couldnt get kills on easy lane. We tried to gank mid, but Invoker maxed Ques+Wex so all he did was Tornado into the icepath and the enemy ran away. While this action was on, SF died and said "fuck you all", went afk farming the jungle from the 7th to 30th min.

So the lesson was learned, dont pick it until you know who your teammates are.
Btw, the Agha is pritty nice on him now.

Blink/Force Staff are great on him.

I have never maxed Q on him. W seems great to max if you're more gank oriented and you expect to do a lot of pickoffs for early-start of mid game. Try to position your soul catcher in such a way that creeps/heroes are not in the way of the hero you want to target. I usually only max E when I am able to get my arcanes because his mana pool can't really support the spam for harass at early levels. E is used to counter push and harass those who are pushing the tower. Harass doesn't count for much late game, but it gives good vision and is still able to push out the wave. This and W works inside the disruption.

He is great against heroes with projectile stuns (Like Alch/CK/WK), batrider, huskar, etc. (I forget the rest, but it's basically those with animations or projectiles.) He is also great at kiting heroes (so mostly melee or melee-esque heroes I guess).

On a side note, I really like the Aghanim's sceptre upgrade on him. Of course, it's not really a first item worthy build, but it can be a nice luxury item for him.