General DiscussionShadow Demon

This hero is good in certain situations, is one of the best for setting up kills in a trilane (go boots first), the best counter for Ursa in the game, counters Bristleback, clockwerk, etc.

Shadow Demon is extremely powerful as a set up hero for many skill shot stuns. He also has an ulttimate that crushes melee carry heroes even through bkb late game. His damage amp skill also goes through bkb 50% bonus dmg to a target is huge.

Early game shadow poisen stacking is very powerful in the lane, but its a skill shot. If you can land stacks, it's devestating because of the damage per mana cost.

For just 200 mana Shadow Poisen does up to 570 damage at level 1... what other level 1 spells can kill you from full health?

Leveling Shadow poison you get 570/810/1050/1290 magic damage for the same 200 mp cost. Of course its hard to hit 5 stacks... but really that is absolutely the most powerful early game nuke.

With aghs, Shadow Demon can slow to a crawl 3 heros THROUGH bkb at the same time for 5 seconds. How is that not a dominating late game power? A melee carry could be slowed for 15 seconds despite magic immunity... Your 6 slot alchemist does zero attacks in a fight - maybe he gets in some radiance burn dmg?

hes not that bad, the meta is just rly going away from him and the buffs he recives are not to his utility but to the dmgoutput of the poision which is rly not influential whatsoever.

4k upwards he is legit pick imho.
-rly good at setting up lvl 1 kills if coordinated with allys
-generally decent trilaner, zoner and also OK at counterganking mid if he arrive before his mid dies he can safe him and prolly get turnaround kill
-good with and vs illu based heros (even Luna, AM Spectre PL illus from enemy carry can be rly strong too)
-dmg ampilfication scales well into lategame
-bkb piercing slow good for kiting hardcarrys (melee BKB hardcarrys are rly unpicked now tho so obviously this is less useful than say in TI3 meta)
-scouting vision for roshanm, dewards etc
-farm jungle ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNrJKCQwu3c ) or just stack multiple camps at once for a carry
-also counters many single target based killers that rely on hitting their combo (lina, wind etc) these will be overextended and a good target for u, closeby allys and obviously the person u saved.

all of this is actually quite worthless in 9/10 pubgames where peoples skill is to run at each other and cast spells on each other and autoattack each other and who dies first looses (that is the way 5k players look at trashtier) since he doesnt deal dmg or stunlock. most player shave no clue how to be effective with him and the ones that do dont pick him right now cause other heros are stronger.

https://www.dotabuff.com/heroes/alchemist/matchups
Alchemist has a 2% disavantage playing against a Shadow Demon.

Shadow Demon has opportunities early to use Disruption to make Alch stun himself, or disrupt someone already stunned so alchemist can't attack them. Late game Demonic Purge can completely take Alch out of the fight no matter what items he gets.

If this guy actually gets farm he is insane.

Also wrecks most stat base carries or those who have powerful passives,like spectre, PA, AM etc

actually his weakness is early game, he's not very strong in lane unless you use banish thing to setup other shots like mirana arrow. It's not very strong early and he becomes a defensive lane support. His poison thing pushes lane, doesn't do enough dmg early.

He's much stronger mid and late game for bkb piercing slow and being able to remove non bkb person from fight for a bit.

He is the best late game support, like, really. BKB piercing slow and purge, illusions are brutal late game, soul catcher is also useful, poison gives vision. I really like this hero and I hate it when people say he is bad just because they can't play him properly.

that's cuz you are shit are the hero probs

he needs to be played by a competent player to work, otherwise he is a really useless piece of shit thats gonna feed and ocasionally get you killed