Queen of Pain

Akasha the Queen of Pain is a ranged intelligence hero who uses her abilities to close in and deal huge area damage to the enemy. She is typically played as a ganker with her ability to appear in battle and deal damage in quick succession, as well as hunt down fleeing heroes with ease. Her Blink ability is the lynchpin of her skill set, allowing her to enter and leave fights at her whim. Once in position to attack, Akasha can unleash her Scream of Pain and Sonic Wave, able to devastate an entire team at once. Chasing down straggling prey is another of her fortes, with Shadow Strike crippling their ability to escape. Akasha is very adept at getting kills early in the game, and transitions very well into a semi-carry if she acquires the proper items.

Tips

 * Queen of Pain's combinations must be executed with extreme speed to be successful, as her two main damaging abilities are area-of-effect and consequently can be avoided with a quick reaction. A typical combo is to Blink, Scream of Pain, Shadow Strike, and if necessary, Sonic Wave to finish the job. If the enemy flees however, you can kill them simply by blinking ahead of them and continuing to use Scream of Pain.
 * Note however that because her two main damaging spells are area-of-effect, they should be positioned to affect as many enemies as possible. For this reason, it is best to save Sonic Wave until such time as you can hit multiple enemy heroes with it.
 * Taking Blink first can allow you to cliff jungle in games where someone has already picked a mid and a solo offlaner, by blinking to areas where you can attack creeps but they cannot retaliate, such as Radiant's lower left hard camp. It's recommended to rush a Hand of Midas if you do this, to recoup the early experience loss from not being in a lane.
 * Faceless Void's Chronosphere, Enigma's Black Hole and Magnus's Reverse Polarity work extremely well for setting up a Sonic Wave for maximum targets.
 * QoP is superb at chasing her prey, but is very delicate and is often in more danger from enemy towers than enemy heroes. Gearing for HP regeneration may be advisable, as in a critical situation you can Blink to an inaccessible place and wait to recuperate. Bottle will also help with this.
 * If being chased (a common situation for QoP), an often-useful tactic is to blink behind the enemies pursuing you. They will typically assume you blinked ahead and continue on in that direction, allowing for an escape.
 * In a late-game encounter, QoP is best used by hiding until such time as the enemies' more powerful spells are on cooldown, allowing her to Blink in and inflict huge damage on multiple enemies owing to her AoE capabilities without putting her at risk of being killed by powerful spells.
 * A more cautious strategy is to run in without using Blink, saving it for a potential escape. This may be necessary against high-damage enemy heroes, as QoP is very frail and in encounters should try to avoid being attacked at all.
 * Similarly to Lina, QoP has very high burst damage capabilities, but is delicate and not suited to long encounters because of her spells' high mana costs. This can be remedied with items such as Bloodstone and Linken's Sphere, as well as scepter to reduce Sonic Wave's cooldown.
 * Be aware that Rupture will be calculated against the distance traversed should you Blink shorter than the max distance. You can avoid the damage by blinking max distance (1300 units) and moving immediately in that direction.
 * Unmentioned items:
 * allows you to blink in using the Dagger, unleash your abilities, and blink out using your normal Blink ability.
 * Considering Queen of Pain's already impressive burst damage potential, can be the most devastating item she has access to, despite not being in her recommended items. A high level of Scream of Pain and a Dagon burst alone have the potential to instantly deal lethal (or close to lethal) damage in the early game. Upgrading the Dagon by purchasing more recipes will make it even more powerful. A level 4 Scream of Pain and a Dagon 5 can deal 1100 damage assuming zero magic resistance. Adding in a level 3 Sonic Wave increases this to 1590 and if Aghanim's Scepter has been purchased, 1675. Finally, a level 4 Shadow Strike to finish off an enemy will increase this to 1800 plus and additional 300 damage in 5 bursts of 60 damage every 3 seconds. Essentially, assuming no magic resistance, Dagon allows Queen of Pain to deal 1800 damage within an extremely small period of time and prevent any low HP escapes due to Shadow Strike's damage over time. Coupling this with her Blink to unexpectedly initiate and a disabling tool such as an Orchid Malevolence or a Scythe of Vyse makes Queen of Pain one of the most powerful ganking heros in the entire game.

Trivia

 * Akasha is the name (or variant of the name) of the fifth element in many religions such as Hinduism, Wicca (or other Neopaganism), with its roots deriving from ancient Paganism. "Akasha", when translated to English (from Sanskrit), means "aether" (air/spirit, depending on context). This element is seen/represented as the top point of a pentagram, a symbol sometimes misused as one of evil (there is no devil-esque figure in Paganism), and could have been intended to show or derive from Queen of Pain's sadistic nature. 's Doom skill icon is a regular pentagram, so it might be a misconception held by the DotA staff and reasoning for her name. A regular pentagram on someone, ignoring misconceptions, is actually protective.
 * The name Aether is one of the many references Dota 2 makes to Greek mythology, as it is derived from a Greek deity of the same name.
 * Akasha is also the name of the Queen of the Damned from Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles novel series, which could have inspired Queen of Pain's name, who, in turn, could have derived her name from the above roots.
 * Scream of Pain's and Sonic Wave's sounds are based on some voice lines of Queen of Pain. Scream of Pain is based on this Pain pain 12.mp3, while Sonic Wave uses a part of this Pain pain 17.mp3.