Vengeful Spirit

Shendelzare the Vengeful Spirit is a ranged Agility Hero excelling in ganks, disabling and kill hunts. She is one of the most potent supporters in the game. Effective from early to late game, Vengeful Spirit is typically seen roaming the battlefield, searching for targets to prey on, hitting them with a powerful stun with Magic Missile and reducing their armor and scouting ahead with Wave of Terror. Motivated by her determined vengeance, her Vengeance Aura boosts her bonus attack damage not only for herself, but her allies as well. This makes her an ideal partner for physical gankers and carries, and what makes her a potential Carry herself. Her ultimate Nether Swap switches your position with another hero; ally or enemy. This allows Shendel to swap an enemy key hero making him/her vulnerable or sacrificing herself to save an important ally from death which may be essential to win a clash, or perhaps the entire game. Her unusual reliance on Agility (rather than Intelligence, like most supports) results in her offensive capabilities being remarkably high, at the cost of having a lower mana pool. She needs items perhaps less than any other hero in the game, and as such can be played with great recklessness, as her death is only a slight inconvenience. Shendel requires very selfless and skilled play to operate well, and relies on the competence of teammates as much as herself.

Tips

 * Usually max first, as aside from being a powerful early-game stun it allows allies to land their own, usually-more-difficult spells. Leaving Missile at level 1 in favor of maxing  is a build often seen among professional players however.
 * Besides being an effective disabler, she is a potent interrupter from and.
 * Her boosts her own damage as well, so do not underestimate her autoattack.
 * Be aware that will push the lane, depriving your lane partner of farm and increasing the risk of a gank.
 * An amazing item on is, it gives her a passive +7 armor which makes her tankier, She gets some good mana regen, and when comboed with her  she can drop a target's armor by -13 making most heroes have negative armor while under attack, also can be latter build into.
 * A ganking trick early-game is to an enemy hero into a tower's range, then use  to stun them. With the tower's help you should easily kill the hero.
 * can complement attribute-based carries like, ,, and special mention to  since her  fully stacks with  for a great physical damage amplification as both her aura and armor reduction enhances their damage in teamfights. Keep in mind that her aura does not improve bonus damage from items and so is less effective for heroes who rely on such items. She is also effective in helping spells that are hard to land, such as 's . She also makes a good companion to Illusion heroes (ie , , etc) as they almost exclusively go for attribute based items, amplifying the given damage by  significantly.
 * is an armour reduction spell with very little mana cost, and should be used in every encounter. It can be used to reveal the fog of war to scout out possible ambushes or to reveal an area for a.
 * Without considering raw damage bonuses, the positive aura is equivalent to -2/-3.33/-4.67/-6 armor for enemies while the negative aura is equivalent to 2.27/4.17/6.48/9.38 armor for allies.
 * can be an item-independent hero, meaning she can be effective even with minimal items. She should constantly be ganking your opponents keeping enemy carries in check, warding and de-warding maps or assist in pushes. Reserve the farming for your carries, as they require items and levels to be useful.
 * has multiple uses despite its simple mechanic. It allows to bring an isolated enemy hero into her team, or to exchange her own life for that of a crucial ally. This very often entails suicide, but because of her ability to function with very few items, it is almost always better for  to die than for her allies.
 * With good communication, allows you to escape death by swapping with an ally that has potent escape mechanism such as 's  without putting them in much danger.
 * With 's on, she can then swap her opponents while being returned back to her exact location afterwards, effectively saving her from imminent death.
 * allows to use  and then escape from danger, making it a much more useful spell for initiation. Once invisible, She can engage at an appropriate moment in the ensuing team battle, with bonus damage.,  and even  also have a similar utility with.
 * If being pursued by multiple heroes, can sometimes be used on the enemy hero furthest from you, resulting in the pursuers to overshoot slightly due to a sudden change in direction, giving you extra time to escape in a different pathway though putting you in the opposite direction from your intended escape route.
 * Swap goes through magic immunity and interrupts spells, therefore it can be used to stop Magic Immune units from chanelling a spell. This is 's main job when there are enemies who use BKB to prevent their spells from being interrupted. For example: If there is an on the other team, your job as  (or indeed as any support) is to stay at back of your team. Should the  use his BKB and then, you can swap him out to ruin the initiation.
 * can be played as an effective carry if needed. She is not the hardest carry in the game, but can prove deadly in this role if played correctly. Items that focus on reducing foes armour, such as and  as well as items that boost her primary attribute such as  and  synergize with her skill set and maximize her DPS for this role.
 * As a very situational, but very effective way of dispatching a specific target in an instant, is to pair her with - Simply place yourself atop a number of mines, and use  on an enemy - With enough mines, any target, no matter how tanky, will die immediately after.

Trivia

 * Magic Missile is the first offensive spell available for arcane spellcaster classes in the famed RPG series, Dungeons & Dragons.
 * Previous designs of Vengeful Spirit showed her with a mask that looked similar to her Vengeance Aura ability icon.
 * Vengeful Spirit's fun name, "820", is a tribute to former professional DotA player 820.
 * In DotA1, she was the sister of Mortred, the, and her name was Shendelzare Silkwood. In Dota 2, her lore was changed so that she became affiliated with the Skywrath, thus switching her affiliations to Dragonus, the.
 * In transition to Dota2, her Aura's name was changed from Command Aura to Vengeance Aura.