Dealing With Necrophos
Art by TrungTH
Necrophos is among the top 3 heroes in pub win rate, even after the nerfs to Ghost Shroud and Reaper’s Scythe in patch 7.06f. But even at 3rd place, he still remains as the 6th most popular hero in the game (21.85% pick rate). He wins more games than every other top hero in the pub meta, and that means players are losing just as much, especially in the 2-3k MMR bracket, where he’s posting an astounding 59.36% win rate.
Necrophos had his spotlight at TI, but the truth is that he has long been strong in the pub meta. He has easy-to-use skills, an impactful aura, and a defensive skill that turns a Magic Wand into Cheese. That’s not to mention Reaper’s Scythe, which has an underrated benefit with its shrieking animation of aligning teammates to focus on one goal of killing that target. While his imbalances remain, there are a few things pub players can do to mitigate his impact in the game.
Lane Pressure
Is the offlane really the best lane for Necrophos?
Necrophos can draw his lane, but he won’t necessarily win it. He has no way of killing a solo lane opponent. And he has a poor attack animation and movespeed; it’s the reason why he’s typically played in the safelane in competitive games. That isn’t the pub meta, which rarely endorses an Intelligence hero as a carry in the safelane.
In pubs, Necrophos is played mostly in the offlane (45.38%). It’s not the best fit for him. He can’t resort to the jungle, and Ghost Shroud just isn’t enough to escape. But it’s a sign of how innately effective Necrophos is, and the inability of pubs to capitalize on early game weaknesses, when that’s the lane where he’s also posting his highest win rate.
Pub players stand to benefit by being more aggressive against passive lanes. Newbee tried this against Liquid in the Grand Finals by pairing a strong offlane duo of Lich and Legion Commander in Necrophos’ lane (they won the lane but lost the game).
Play The Hero
This seems like exacerbating the issue, but one of the best ways to understand how to counter a hero is to just play it. If there’s ever a hero that seems impossible to counter, playing it a few times will reveal that’s not always the case.
As it stands, many pub players don’t grasp the mechanics of Necrophos’ skills, that Heartstopper Aura is underrated in its impact, Ghost Shroud not only means you can’t attack him, but that its magic damage vulnerability means he can be incinerated with a Laguna Blade.
Necrophos isn’t the creeping tank of death that he feels like when playing against him. Not every opponent will sit in the lane and let Hearstopper Aura tick away and zone them out. Getting a better grasp of how a hero works, not only just his skills, but in context of stages of the game, with and against different heroes, is essential to getting better.
Glimmer Cape
Glimmer Cape has lost a bit of its luster since its introduction (nerfs to magic resistance and cooldown), but when it came into Dota it was Necrophos’ worst nightmare. The item is more situational these days, but this is exactly the perfect time to consider it again. It does require a reaction that’s quicker than 1.5 seconds—the stun time for Reaper’s Scythe. The active is enough to save a teammate and make enemy Necrophos players second guess their Scythe timing.
Another way to save your teammate
Diffusal Blade
Ghost Shroud is one of the more annoying spells to deal with against Necrophos. He has a natural Ghost Scepter, and its regenerative bonus makes him that much tankier when he has even just a handful of charges on a Magic Wand. It's worth it for many cores to pick the item up even if it's not in their usual core items.
Anti-Mage
Because Necrophos’ ultimate is based off % HP, it scales well in the late-game. That doesn’t matter to Anti-Mage. Spell Shield’s 50% magic resistance at level 4 is enough protection to shrug off Necrophos’ presence in the game (Aghanim’s Scepter upgrade might be worth it in this case). And since Necrophos’ skills are mana intensive, he leaves himself vulnerable to a Mana Void when he’s forced to target his ultimate on a better target.
The hero was again Newbee’s counterpick against Team Liquid. It worked well against the hero, just not against everything else.
Zeus
There’s a group of magic-damage heroes that can work well against Necrophos—Lina, Lion, Skywrath—but Zeus is the easiest to use. Zeus is the only hero that Necrophos has a <50% win rate against, even if he’s not necessarily the strongest against him on paper. It’s just what happens to work in the practical context of pubs.
Pugna
Pugna does surprisingly well against unwitting opponents, which isn’t uncommon in pubs. Life Drain and Nether Blast are strong spells with low cooldowns, making Necrophos players question whether they want to essentially Decrepify themselves for the heal. Nether Ward kills are some of the most satisfying ones in Dota. They both capitalize on opponents mistakes and reward the player for its placement. Skywrath Mage players know what it’s like to be counterpicked by Pugna. Necrophos players need to feel it more often. This month, our matchup stats show that Necrophos has the largest disadvantage (-5.14%) against Pugna.
Ancient Apparition
AA is the go-to counter for healing and regenerating heroes. At TI, Team Liquid would often ban the hero or pick it in preparation for their own Necrophos pickup. Whereas core picks like Pugna and Anti-Mage can force your team into a strategy, an AA pickup is still flexible.
There are a multitude of other heroes and strategies that can help against Necrophos, but these are a few principles of what to do. He's more difficult to counter than he is to play, and so the burden is on his opponents to find a way,
I love and hate Necrophos!
You forget visage and gravekeeper's cloak.
I prefer AA more than necro.
Im actually surprised i didnt see oracle
Dazzle, Shadow Demon, and Oracle are also good versus Necrophos.
His heals makes him super unpredictable in team fights and he could turn the tides of team fight alone.
the aura is HP removal and not Magic damage as much as I know, so magic res is uselss against an aura
can someone explain the clip?!?!?
Bane's Nightmare ability makes the target invulnerable for the first 1 second of it's duration. The Bane in the clip had good timing and used it to block the Reaper's Scythe damage instance.
Heroes of any allegiance can also "juggle" the invulnerability by forcing attack commands onto a Nightmare target, which resets the duration and includes the invulnerability period. As long as another hero picks up the Nightmare before it ends, it can continue indefinitely. Awesome, but impractical.
I think u missed silences. It kinda destroys necro (or at least makes him a non-factor).
i think oracle should be on the list.. oh well, im a 3k scrub so my opinion doesnt matter xD
a defensive skill that turns a Magic Wand into Cheese
What!!!? It amplifies mana and health regeneration from wand too?? Holy crap!!
More Nerf incoming
Just make ult channeled ability, like black hole.
No Oracle?????????
Nyx pos 4 is strong against offlane necro. Necro will be rekt easily. With a range carry like sniper or luna will do.
It does require a reaction that’s quicker than 1.5 seconds—the stun time for Reaper’s Scythe
I believe dota players have pretty good reaction times.. Even in 2k. Umm.. No TA?
His ghost shroud should slow him aswell, that magic resistance reduction really isn't a big deal
Here you can check funny ~ 1k mmr play by me with necro. I got a lot of early in offlane. Quite funny ;p
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClvrM6GADzs
> enemy team pick Necrophos
> *insta pick AA*
Good write up, necro is a monster right now.
Necrophos has 1 starting armor. Heavy physical damage and Diffusal Blade for Ghost Shroud :) ez game ez life :D
Templar Assassin, Slardar, Sven, Terrorblade, Vengeful Spirit, Medallion of Courage -> Solar Crest, etc. =D
How to deal with Anti-mage next please !
b-b-but I cant save my teammate with glimmer cape because my reaction is slower than a potato.
I always play Necro in the offlane and win the lane most of the time, then I just continue to snowball after that. I like to get lots of armor for tankiness but it all depends on how I feel and I almost have a 70% winrate with him. to counter him is ez, get a dagon or diffusal.
Jug should've been mentioned, not only does he have high magical damage during Necro's skil 2 but also naturally builds into difusal ( Usually first item against Necro ) and manta that can amplify his damage against Necro.
@GENIOR.ลิคควิด it's not about reaction time, just watch your team mates health which is something supports do all the time, necro is most likely to ult anyone who drops below half and soon as possible, he will mostly look for cores to ult but even if a support is near him he'll settle for that too especially if necro has aghanim
only in super late game may necro save his ult to use against important targets like bristleback , spectre , etc
necrophos is not impossible to kill enemy when solo vs solo. you just need to build upgrade only Q and E and buy a phase boot, and make sure enemy has 50%-60% hp and you have enough mana for Q and ult when you turn to lv6.
@ChunChunMaru Jugg is countered heavily by necrophos. First of all, he's a melee hero. I usually prioritize Heartstopper Aura when I lane with melee carries + not-so-aggressive support(s). Secondly, no one would just press W whenever a jugg comes to him. The W must be held until jugg's spin is over, or when jugg's ult starts, which leads to Thirdly, necro's W counters jugg ult heavily. Until he gets his diffusal, his ultimate has 0 effect on Necro, but often times, he already died too many times and team lost. The only counter from Jugg to Necro is that if Necro casted ult on Jugg when spin is not on cd, the ultimate would be cancelled out.
@TopLuca just pick blood seeker. gg.
Believe or not. As a dedicated Necro player (see my stats page), the heroes I hate most are: viper, storm spirit, zeus, invoker and phantom assassin.
In All Pick, I used to always ban invoker, but he's nerfed heavily right now, and I've added BKB to my item build whenever I see an invoker, so he's fine now. I always ban phantom assassin now. PA is not as bad as viper / storm / zeus, but PA is picked too often, which means even if the win rate against PA is higher than win rate against viper / storm / zeus, the total number of games lost (and the chance of losing) to a PA is much higher.
As for viper and storm, I used to have only 33% win rate against either of them. Necro moves so slow. When they came to me I couldn't get out even if I have force staff. I'm thinking maybe I'll build blink + eul to escape from these two bastards.
Why AA / pugna are not a threat? because there are not too many guys are good at these two heroes, especially AA. And even if a necro couldn't heal in 50% of the team fights, he's still strong enough.
@Euronymous it amplifies healing from everything, mek, shrine, fountain, his own Q, you name it.
if you have to read these articles to figure out how to counter these heroes then its already too late for you
Thanks to this necro, my winning steak with bs is ruined:(
I SPAM NECRO to GET 4k MMR . RADIANCE + HURRICANE PIKE + BKB . NO ONE CAN STOP THAT MONSTER . EZ MID EZ FUCK INJOKER
SILVER EDGE + REAPER ALSO FOR = "SURPRISE MOTHERF****R"
how about visage? his cloak defenses from necro's scythe very well
SD is good option aswell, I often pick SD vs necrophos. On paper it is very good you can disrupt your allies when necro ults them and SD's ultimate dispells ghost shroud. Tbh I am losing most of the games playing SD vs necro but it is very satisfying to save your teammates with disruption :)
I thought Oracle would be on here. Like all of his skills counter Necro. Q to purge ghost shroud, W to cancel necro's Q and ult, E to nuke him during ghost shroud, and his ultimate to save someone from scythe too.
@Cyborg of the Year
5000 games sitting at normal skill - you might wanna do some reading yourself
There's another solution: don't play this videogame until Valve shall fix the balance and stop doing untested shit.
Oracle, is really, really a hard counter for necro, in all aspects