Necrophos

Rotund'jere the Necrophos is a ranged intelligence hero who typically plays as a mid-game carry. His skills are most effective in team fights where he can damage enemies and heal allies simultaneously, while picking off key enemy heroes with his ultimate. Necrophos is most dangerous when his enemy is severely injured, instantly killing them with his ultimate while recovering over time after killing his foe. Necrophos is naturally fragile, but his mechanics require him to stay in the midst of encounters; it is for this reason that he depends on items to prevent his death. Ideally, by casting Death Pulse repeatedly, he and his team are able to stay alive while the enemy team's health is gradually sapped by Heartstopper Aura, which reduces enemy HP by a small percentage each second. Because his abilities are suited to prolonged encounters, he must build items which allow him to survive for as long as possible against his enemies. His ultimate, Reaper's Scythe, has its damage increased by how much of their maximum HP the target is missing; meaning that an enemy that is close to death will be killed outright by it. Upon attaining a kill, Sadist restores Necrophos's mana and HP over a short time, allowing him to continue fulfilling his role in encounters. Necrophos is best understood as a hero who is weak at the beginning of a fight but becomes more dangerous with each passing second.

Tips

 * Taking one point in Heartstopper Aura in the early game allows Necrophos to harass enemy heroes by simply standing near them.
 * Note however that the aura affects enemy creeps, and thus putting points in it will push the lane. Should you lane with a farm-dependent carry, it is unwise to push as it makes their farm more difficult and leaves both of you more vulnerable to ganks. Putting one or at the most two points in it is appropriate for early game.
 * The philosophy behind Reaper's Scythe is that (owing to Sadism) it will return its mana expenditure if you secure a kill. There are several situations in which this ability should be used purely for its stun, such as interrupting channelled ultimates (such as those belonging to Pudge or Enigma) or preventing an enemy hero from escaping. Remember that the stun goes through magic immunity, although the damage will not.
 * Reaper's Scythe will almost definitely kill targets at 35% or less hp (with Aghanim's Scepter it's generally any amount under 45%). Remember to factor in Magic Resistance before you attempt to execute an enemy hero with it.
 * Aghanim's Scepter upgrades Necrophos's ultimate and will increase the damage ratio to 1.2 at max rank. To calculate the raw damage of Reaper's Scythe, multiply the missing health of an enemy by the ratio. For example, if Axe has a maximum health of 3,900 and he has lost 2,200 health, multiply 2,200 by 1.2 and the damage of Reaper's Scythe will be 2640 (ignoring Magic Resistance), which is more than lethal enough to kill him. Simply put you can kill any hero without any extra magic resistance once their HP drops to roughly half way through no matter how big their HP pool is.
 * The Reaper's Scythe instant-kill HP threshold, with the base 25% magic resist factored in and without Aghanim's Scepter, can be calculated by multiplying the enemy max health with the constants: 3/13, 9/29, or 27/67 for each respective level of the ultimate. With the Scepter, the values change to 9/29, 27/67, and 9/19. Example: If Windrunner has 700 max health; 700*3/13 = 161. Id est, she must have 161 or less HP to be killed by level 1 Reaper's Scythe without Scepter.
 * Keep in mind that Reaper's Scythe is not a channeling ability, meaning you can move the moment you have cast it. As such, it can be used to escape ganks and chases. However, be sure of two things before using it this way, first of all, make sure the 1.5 second stun can actually save you, even if it can save you consider secondly if it is worth using your powerful ultimate solely for saving yourself. Otherwise it is most likely more beneficial to your team to accept your death and save your ultimate for the next encounter.
 * Necrophos can very easily be built as a tank and in most circumstances should be; you may gear for Strength (he does not need excessive Intelligence as his autoattack is not useful and his spells are not particularly expensive, besides which Sadist refunds mana). The reason he is usually built as a tank is because he needs to stay alive in violent encounters to heal his allies (a good enemy team will focus him first), and also because the longer he is alive for, the more damage his aura will do and the better chance he has of landing a crucial Reaper's Scythe.
 * Utility items, such as Mekansm and Pipe of Insight are more useful for Necrophos, because of Heartstopper Aura he can inflict constant damage simply by avoiding death.
 * Necrophos is effective against invisible heroes that tend to stalk their prey as his Heartstopper Aura does damage while they are in stealth, and his Reaper's Scythe will prevent them from escaping via invisibility before they die. He is also very good against heroes with abilities that deplete their own HP, such as Pudge and Huskar, but Necrophos should first be durable enough to take on these kinds of risk/reward heroes.
 * Necrophos's role is notoriously debated; while his abilities appear supportive at their core, his Reaper's Scythe is a tool used to secure kills only for himself (much like Axe's Culling Blade). This is atypical for a standard support hero, because supports usually attempt to confer gold and experience to the team's carry. The duplicity of his carry/support role stems from his unique stance in encounters; his kit is largely supportive until an enemy hero grows weak, at which point Necrophos has the capacity to kill said enemy himself. He is best viewed as a utility focused semicarry, rather than a full fledged support hero, in a similar vein to heroes like Tidehunter or Windranger.
 * Necrophos is best described as a tank carry/support hybrid as he builds support items and has a healing skill yet these items give him extremely strong team presence during a team fight. The idea behind this as mentioned is that the longer Necrophos stays alive the more damage his enemies suffer due to his aura and spamming of his first skill that both damages all enemies nearby and heals allies at the same time. With a Mekansm and Pipe of Insight and the low cooldown of his first skill Necrophos becomes exceedingly hard to bring down unless focused with stuns and disables which in turn leaves your teammates free to offer their own skills to the fight.
 * Necrophos is countered by any hero with high HP regeneration, such as Dragon Knight and Quas-focused Invoker, or a hero with lifesteal capabilities; because he relies on inflicting constant, gradual damage with Death Pulse and Heartstopper Aura. Heroes with these attributes will resist this in lane against Necrophos, keeping high enough HP to prevent death by Reaper's Scythe.
 * As Necrophos's survivability heavily relies on his ability to spam Death Pulse you need to be wary of heroes with silence such as Drow Ranger, Silencer and Death Prophet. Ancient Apparition can also greatly cripple you with Ice Blast as this skill prevents HP from regenerating for an extended period of time.
 * Dagon is more useful on Necrophos than other heroes because it not only deals burst damage, but also allows you to quickly deal more damage from your ultimate.
 * Ethereal Blade can be used in conjunction with Reaper's Scythe and Death Pulse to deal significantly more damage.
 * Pick this hero when you have agressive trilane and enemy has tanky offlaner, so you can beat that lane for sure.

Trivia

 * Necrophos's alternate/fun name was "A Phoe Gyi", which means "an old man" in the Burmese language. It also sounds similar to 'a fogey', which is an elderly, normally grumpy individual.
 * Necrophos's original title in DotA was "Necrophiliac"; his designer altered the name to "Necrolyte" (a portmanteau of nekros (νεκρός), the Greek word for corpse, and acolyte, a religious attendant) upon realizing its implied sexual connotation.
 * In the November 21, 2013 update, Necrolyte's name was changed to Necrophos, likely to avoid copyright issues with Blizzard.
 * In the same update, Necrophos's voice processing was changed a bit to sound more distinct from . However, there was a bug that made the in-game processing much deeper and slower than it should have been.