Shadow Demon/Guide

Lane Support/Gank Shadow Demon
This is the most common way to play Shadow Demon. It relies heavily on teamplay as your hero will do very little of the damage himself, serving only as initiator with followed by  (eventually), and huge damage booster for your allies with , using   to scout and chase.

Paired up with/against strong illusion heroes
This is a scenario where you know will do a lot of damage, probably to enemy buildings. This style requires a bit more micro as you will need to control the illusions you're spawning instead of letting them auto-attack whatever.

This style is fully dependent on your and your enemy's team composition. Your best friend in this scenario is as the illusions will dish out colossal amounts of damage while he's in, also being a lot more durable than his own. These images also serve as the perfect target for your disruption, as it can't be used as an initiation against Terrorblade himself.

Other friends include, , , and more. All these heroes are also good targets against enemies.

Since you're maxing out disruption, keep in the mind the cd gets shorter and you'll have more occasions to save your allies lives from a deadly or even a

It's worthwhile to note that, in scenarios where we're maxing last, it can be interesting to ignore the second level of  at level 11. The damage from Demonic purge only increases by 100 per level with no other additional benefits so, if you can get 3 stacks of poison or more on an opponent, the damage from poison actually scales better.

Passive game Shadow Demon
This is a scenario where you'll be stacking and farming the jungle, perhaps because the opponents have escape mechanisms and your team has no real catch/silence, perhaps because both teams have a jungler and you cannot gank theirs by yourself. In this scenario, think long and hard before skilling at level 1 since in most cases, you should prioritize  for your first skill point.

General
In most scenarios, Shadow Demon's combo goes like this: initiate on a lonesome enemy with ; use a to DISABLE HIS BLINK DAGGER should he have one, use  on top of it to amplify his damage taken, use  when he pops out of disruption, laugh maniacally as he dies from illusions of himself hitting him for an unexpected amount of damage, while stacking more poison on him, unless he has an easy way to purge the poison (dark pact, press the attack, repel...) in which case you might as well activate it on every 1-stack, and repeat the purge if you have a scepter.


 * has many good uses. One way is to save an ally after they get caught (e.g. by a stun) and save them from damage they would otherwise take, as well as prevent the enemy from stacking disables. Another use is to set up a gank: use Disruption, and then your allies can position themselves closer to the target, as well as set up spells that require aiming, or has a delay.
 * Disruption, as most banishes, is a very versatile skill, that has this unfortunate flaw it can do more harm than good to your team than good, in the wrong hands.
 * Like eul's scepter of divinity, it is a perfect setup for unreliable stuns such as Leshrac's split earth,  Lina's Light-Strike-Array or  Kunkka's torrent. Like eul's, it is perfect to waste 2.5 seconds of an opponent's precious buff, such as  Dazzle's shallow grave or  Abaddon's Borrowed time.
 * Unlike eul's, it can be used on allies to save them from opponents' initiation or even their finishing blow. Thus you can save an ally and turn a fight around by banishing him from a predictable Reaper's scythe or even a  Finger of Death or  Laguna blade. The same can be said for  Outworld Devourer's Astral Imprisonment.
 * In return, however, and for the same reasons, it can also serve as the perfect initiation tool for the enemy team!
 * Disruption also creates two very strong illusions of the target, making Shadow Demon very dangerous against illusion based heroes such as Terrorblade and  Phantom Lancer. If the target is an enemy, the illusions will automatically attack it. These same heroes will also work as your best partners when besieging the opponent's high ground at little to no risk. Special mention goes to  Centaur warrunner whose illusions benefit from his return passive, damaging the towers for a considerable amount should they (automatically) target the illusions.
 * Plenty of heroes have an escape mechanism that can render your illusions useless after the disruption (blink, leap, pounce...), if no ally on your team has any follow up stun or silence, you may be better off leaving it at that instead of wasting your mana on extra spells. But you can also control the illusions to target a different opponent, or even push out the lane and farm. In the early game, the illusions spawned can also serve to fully block an opponent that would be trying to hide or juke in the trees, or that would be carelessly walking close to a wall. Hypothetically, you should even be able to fully block an opponent by your lonesome self with just the help of an iron branch: the enemy would be blocked between yourself, two illusions and a temporary tree. You cannot block someone with only yourself plus the illusions and no extra border.
 * If you are facing a hero with a strong orb effect like Anti-Mage in the lane, use Disruption on them often and force them to flee from the illusions.
 * Disruption can be used to help teammates land spells with long cast times or delays. Examples include skills such as, , and even  or . When combined with Soul Catcher, this makes for a powerful ganking combination.
 * Check illusions of enemies created by Disruption. You can get useful information such as their skill build and item build.
 * Finally, the illusions can be very useful for heroes that tend to build a lot of auras, most notably a radiance, since your illusions will benefit from it, turning the enemy's radiance against them.


 * is extremely strong skill at all stages of the game, and arguably Shadow demon's only skill that scales well into the late game. However, it's search radius is fairly large and if you use it in the middle of a creep wave, odds are it won't hit your intended target.
 * Though it's tempting to always use it after disruption as part of your general combo, always use it by itself when you have any kind of opportunity as it tremendously increases your and your team's damage output and the duration lasts as long as the cooldown anyway.
 * Soul Catcher synergizes extremely well with single-target nukes, such as, , or.
 * Soul Catcher is extremely effective in conjunction with Pure damage spells since they ignore any kind of magic armor and are amplified.


 * is Shadow Demon's only directly damage spell outside of his ultimate and has the potential to deal 1040 damage before reductions when maxed although it does take some time to set up. Shadow poison is at it's strongest in drawn out fights where Shadow Demon can stand in the backlines debilitating his foes with his spells and spam it out. Unlike the rest of his spells Shadow Poison IS DISPELLABLE so keep this in mind versus heroes such as, , or or against heroes that build . Shadow poison will always disable  on hit and can do so against enemies in Disruption because of this it is especially good at keeping blink heroes from countering your initiation or push such as , , or . Shadow Poison gives flying vision over it's area during travel time and can be used to deward up cliffs and scout out jukes and ganks.
 * Shadow Poison becomes much more lethal when stacked up to 5, with this, you can destroy enemy heroes in the lane, even in the earliest stages. However, the mana cost is great and you should learn to control your mana or buy mana-boosting items for you to perform.
 * Be wary if your opponent has a or, as the charges provided by poison will help him sustain in lane and potentially turn a gank around, and poison is very easy to dodge if you keep an eye on shadow demon. However, also remember that an opponent needs vision of you as you're casting the spell to get the charge, and it's well worth a stick charge to cancel a  or  as you can do so from a safe distance.
 * Shadow Poison fully works on invisible heroes, and it can be your safest way to secure a kill without diving a tower. Since the damage doubles on each stack of poison, it's only interesting to keep the stacks on a fleeing opponent (that could potentially heal while you try to chase) if you think you can get at least 3 stacks on him. If you can only get two, it will damage for the same amount as two stacks of one. In lane however, you have a full ten seconds between each stack to try to add them up to 4 or 5, forcing him to run away. If the opponent is melee and tries to go for a last hit, there is your opportunity to add another stack on him.
 * Though an opponent needs to be extra careless to allow 4-5 stacks of poison to stack up on him, the same can't be said for creeps. In a passive game, you can easily farm the jungle with poison, speeding up the process as you level it. It's also a reliable tool to double or even triple stack certain camps (and farm those stacks too): the poison will activate by itself after ten seconds so you can use it once on a far away camp around :43 so it will aggro you at :53 and stack; use another on a nearby camp that you don't have vision of at :53; and stack the one in front of you with a right click at :55. You can't be too far away from the first camp you're trying to stack or else it will not aggro you when the poison activates, making the whole triple-stack process rather tricky.
 * Similarly, should you find a bit of space to farm in lane, poison will help you stay behind/safer and farm/push out the lane faster


 * is an extremely strong magic immunity piercing skill that is most effective versus heroes that want to be in the midst of a fight with magic immunity such as, , or . In addition to the potent slow, Demonic Purge will live up to its name and remove any friendly buffs placed on the target such as , , , ,  and a variety of item buffs such as , , and . Aghanim's Scepter grants an enormous increase in potency by giving Shadow Demon a potentially 15 second magic immunity piercing slow and dispel. Aghanim's Scepter also gives Demonic Purge the Break debuff which disables enemy passives for the duration of the spell.
 * A can be used for much the same purposes as Demonic Purge, while having up to 16 charges (After using all the charges and buying a new recipe, and excluding any Diffusal Blades you might obtain in the future exhausting all charges possible). However, it does not go through  (Or other similar time-based spell immunity, such as ) and it does not apply a Break. Consider it a possible alternative if  is too costly and/or you need to purge multiple targets at once, but wish to save your ultimate for the one with the highest priority.

Items
Starting items:
 * es provide cheap stats, and can later be built into a Magic Wand.
 * A gives Shadow Demon additional intelligence to cast more spells.
 * A set of es is useful for health regeneration early in the game. A Tango from the set can also be shared with the team's carry, allowing him or her to stay in the lane longer.
 * If Shadow Demon takes significant burst damage, a allows him to quickly get back into action.
 * Shadow Demon is mostly played as a heavy support and as such is usually in charge to get at the very least an and a couple of s.

Early game:
 * provides crucial burst health and mana, especially if the enemies in lane are constantly casting their abilities.
 * give Shadow Demon the mobility he needs for ganking and escaping.
 * The starting Mantle can be built into a for additional stats.
 * Don't hesitate to get a as a way to get closer to your enemy for your disruption. You'll be lucky to catch an enemy on whom you have an actual kill potential if you simply walk up to him.

Core items:
 * The Magic Stick and Ironwood Branches can be upgraded into a, freeing up inventory space for additional core items.
 * Repeated uses of Shadow Poison will quickly drain Shadow demon's mana, and provide additional mana pool and consistent regeneration for this purpose.
 * The versatile allows Shadow Demon to rapidly escape from danger, defend towers, join teamfights, or set up ganks.
 * All his spells benefit from an, especially disruption which has a fairly low cast range. The health regen provided by it also allows you to sustain in lane or while you farm the jungle with poison.
 * The break provided by as well as the two extra charges are well worth the cost and you should always consider it at one point or another.
 * Shadow Demon suffers from no mobility, so a is a perfect choice on him, a typical support item, to either reposition, run away, chase, initiate or save an ally.

Situational Items:
 * gives very good health regeneration. More importantly, it allows Shadow Demon to cast a magic-resistant shield on nearby allies, extending their longevity in teamfights.
 * If the slow provided by Demonic Purge is insufficient, a Shiva's Guard will give an additional area-of-effect slow. The Freezing Aura, increased armor, and provided intelligence give Shadow Demon greatly increased sustainability in teamfights.
 * The minions summoned by the are useful for pushing towers as well as focusing Soul Catcher's affected target. The strength and intelligence that come with it are an additional boon. Necronomicon's lvl 3 Warrior also has true sight, which is really helpful if enemies have invisible heroes.
 * Burst health regen and armor, if used correctlyc can instantly turn the tide of teamfights in your favor.
 * enables Shadow Demon to use Cyclone as a second pseudo-banish, as well as providing crucial mana regeneration.
 * is a viable pick in certain situations as good positioning is vital to Shadow Demon, allowing you to stay at the back and avoid possible initiation/focus and, in some situations, even counter-initiate.
 * provides another defense mechanism that is quite often needed against right-clickers such as Phantom Assassin however it may not be a viable pick against heroes that tend to get a Diffusal Blade.
 * is a similar decent choice, as it gives you an extra purge to work with, which can help remove a or a . The 20 ms provided by the  makes it a good starting item too, and the mana regen is always nice to help you farm with poison.
 * is an unusual choice on Shadow Demon. Though it can help to setup ganks with disruption, don't forget it also gives time to the enemy team to react, most notably on your fragile self. Also the 2.5sec banish might not be enough for your team to follow if they don't have a mobility item of their own. A strong point in favor of Blink Dagger is you can blink out of disruption if you're caught, provided you can wait 0.5sec without taking damage.
 * If you play a core Shadow Demon (in the mid position most likely), as it's damage is amplified by soul catcher, plus whatever spell amp you may get from your int stat. As a theoretical scenario, a dagon 5 and three charges of demonic purge amplified add up to 3,000 magical damage before reductions and spell amp (1.5 * (800 + 3 * 400)). The burst damage from dagon is unlikely to be evaded, unlike the slow, build-up damage from poison or demonic purge.
 * is extremely strong on Shadow Demon. You can use it immediately after Disruption (no cast time), allowing your illusions to hit their target with ease, and should net a kill for you if you used the rest of your kit. However, as good as it is, don't forget it is extremely expensive and most games will be well over before you manage to farm it.