Doom/Guide

General

 * One of Doom's greatest weaknesses is his minimal base armor and extremely low agility, making him very vulnerable to physical damage despite being a strength hero, and reducing his physical damage output potential. As well, he has the lowest base attack time in the game, meaning that his attack speed is extremely slow unless boosted by items. Therefore, he must build armor items in order to survive in teamfights, and attack speed items in order to be able to deal any damage to enemies.
 * Due to his Devour ability, Doom is a good farmer who can quickly get the gold to purchase many strong core items to alleviate his weaknesses. His ability to obtain gold and experience using this ability also allows him to greatly diversify and play many different roles depending on what his team needs.
 * In general, Doom is best played as a safe lane carry, as his ability to farm can allow him to get numerous powerful items that give him strong teamfight presence. The degree to which he can carry is almost unlimited, and can be chosen depending on which stage of the game it is best to end on based on the enemy team's lineup.
 * Doom's ability to instantly kill creeps with Devour makes him a respectable jungler, as he can farm neutral camps relatively quickly with the ability. He can also rotate with any abilities he has gained through consuming creeps to gank the enemy as needed.
 * With a few points in Scorched Earth, Doom can be a very strong off-laner, as the spell can give him the mobility and survivability he needs to stay alive. Devour allows him to consume creeps, both enemy and neutral, to guarantee gold and experience gain, while Infernal Blade allows him to inflict surprising amounts of damage against enemy supports that attempt to trade hits with him.
 * Doom can also play a utility or support role, as his ultimate gives him a way to contribute to a teamfight regardless of how much farm he has. Devour allows him to obtain gold without being given major farm priority, meaning that even if given the priority of a hard support he can get gold to buy items that help him or his team.


 * Devour allows Doom to instantly kill a target non-friendly creep, gaining the gold and experience bounty immediately and then bonus gold after consuming it.
 * Devour is Doom's strongest early-game spell, as it accelerates his gold and experience gain, giving him an early advantage. It should generally be the first spell that is maxed out, as it allows Doom to obtain early levels and fast core items if left alone by the enemy team.
 * Assuming it is always used when off cooldown, Devour increases Doom's GPM by 21/50/90/150 - not including the bounty from the creep it is used on.
 * The ability to steal neutral creep abilities is very strong, as Doom gains both the active and passive abilities. This allows him to choose a creep that gives him the most benefits depending on what opponents he is facing or what he needs in-lane. Good Doom play requires understanding each neutral creep's strengths and how they can be best utilized depending on the situation; certain creeps are very powerful in the laning stage or give an edge while jungling, while others are powerful for initiating or disabling enemies in fights, and still others provide auras or can place buffs that greatly benefit the whole team in the late game.
 * If you are going to jungle at the start of the game, a Satyr Tormenter should be first priority to use your Devour on, as its greatly increases your survivability and regeneration and makes up for Doom's low attack speed and armor. This is not recommended if you are going to lane, however, as the aura pushes the lane and either makes you more vulnerable to ganks or hurts your farm, while  uses too much mana to be spammed in lane for harass.
 * A very good choice for at early game is to devour a Hill Troll Priest as it is useful if you are either going to jungle or lane. In lane it provides you and your lane partner much higher mana regen (even higher than the bonus provides with a level 3 or lower ), allowing you to continuously spam your abilities. In addition, its  can allow you to heal without using consumables (this is rather inefficient due to the longer cast time it has when used by Doom).
 * If you intent to gank often or simply want to score early kills, good choices for Devour targets would be the Ghost, Centaur Conqueror, Hellbear Smasher or the Satyr Banisher. The Ghost's can in coalition with an Orb of Venom greatly slow the enemy; provided you continue to hit them. A Centaur Conqueror's  can potentially stun the enemy for a reasonably lengthy duration and score your team a kill, but its small radius and big delay when cast by Doom makes it very unreliable and requires good positioning to be successfully used. The Satyr Banisher's  is a very strong ganking ability, as it not only greatly slows the enemy and has an extremely low cooldown (3 seconds), but it also dispels many buffs. A Hellbear Smasher's  is often times more reliable than War Stomp and its  allows you to deal more blows, but it pushes your lane once the gank is over so you should quickly replace the abilities with others.
 * Mud Golems are also possible choices, as they give you a reliable but somewhat weak nuke and stun in, although you should mind the large cooldown. Their greatest strength, however, is in , which spawns two Doomlings on your death, both of which have the Hurl Boulder ability. If the enemy is weakened enough and they do not dispose of the Doomlings quickly, you may get your revenge from beyond the grave.
 * Devouring a Kobold Foreman for is also a good choice because it grants a movement speed aura that allows Doom and nearby allies to gank more effectively or outmaneuver the enemy team during fights.
 * Obviously, the best choice for late game is the Alpha Wolf, which not only increases the right-click damage of your entire team with, but it also gives you a , both of which greatly amplify your strength as a carry.
 * Keep in mind, Doom must digest any creep that has been devoured before he can use Devour again, even if it has come off cooldown. Doom digests creeps at a rate of 20 HP per second, based on the HP of the creep when it was eaten, so at higher levels of Devour it is often necessary to damage a creep somewhat before devouring it.
 * Beware that you get the bonus gold at the end of the digestion period, and that you lose the debuff upon death, so if you are killed while you are digesting a creep you do not gain the bonus gold. This means that it is a good habit to work down creeps in order to cut down the digestion period, as getting ganked by the enemy can cost you more than just unreliable gold upon death.


 * Scorched Earth increases Doom's movement speed while simultaneously giving him HP regen and magical burn damage in an area around him.
 * Due to the amount of health regeneration and damage it provides, Scorched Earth is a good ability to max out early in a match. The self-heal can greatly increase Doom's survivability in engagements, which in turn helps to keep him alive and active on the map rather than retreating to base to heal or respawning.
 * Regardless of leveling priority, at least one early level of Scorched Earth is recommended, as the movement speed boost is the same at all levels. The extra speed can be crucial in the early game to chase enemies down or outrun pursuers.
 * Due to its instant cast time, Scorched Earth allows Doom to activate it without breaking stride, which can help him to chase or escape without stopping to cast the spell.
 * If jungling, Scorched Earth can give a measure of additional damage output and HP regen. This can be additionally powerful if the Dark Troll Summoner from the Troll Camp has been previously devoured, as the summoned Skeleton Warriors also gain the HP regen from the spell.
 * Scorched Earth is a strong candidate for maxing out early, after Devour. In early game engagements, the burn damage and heal can allow Doom to efficiently trade attacks with the enemy, allowing him to be aggressive in the laning stage.
 * Be very mindful of Scorched Earth's extremely long cooldown. While it costs comparatively little mana to cast, the long cooldown means that using it to farm leaves you vulnerable once the spell's effects end, as you no longer have a movement speed boost or HP regen spell available for some time. Try to only use Scorched Earth when absolutely necessary, as the mobility and survivability it grants can make a huge difference if you are ganked.


 * Infernal Blade is an attack modifier that allows Doom to inflict a damage-over time burn on enemies he attacks, damaging them for a portion of their maximum health. The initial strike with the spell also mini-stuns its target.
 * Because Infernal Blade's damage is expressed as a percentage of the target's maximum HP, it scales into the late game, reliably dealing damage no matter how much health the enemy has. However, due to Doom's need to farm and stay alive in the early game, it is wise to avoid leveling Infernal Blade too much until after both Devour and Scorched Earth are maxed out.
 * Due to its ability to mini-stun targets upon attack, an early value point in Infernal Blade can greatly benefit Doom and his team. Stopping an enemy channeled spell or interrupting a Town Portal Scroll can halt powerful enemy spells or prevent them from escaping or reinforcing their teammates.
 * Keep in mind that despite its low mana cost, Infernal Blade has a very long cooldown at low levels, limiting its damage output. As well, Doom's low base intelligence means that even casting the spell a few times in the early game can greatly drain his mana pool, preventing him from casting his other spells as needed. Try to avoid using Infernal Blade profligately, and cast it only when necessary to either inflict harass damage against lane opponents or when the nuke damage is needed for a kill attempt.
 * As a castable attack modifier, Doom can manually inflict enemies with Infernal Blade during the laning stage without drawing creep aggro. Even though the percentage-based fraction of damage does not do much, the flat damage portion is much stronger in the laning stage, allowing Doom to inflict powerful harass damage against enemies should he get within range to trade auto-attacks with them.
 * When casting Infernal Blade during a fight, try to utilize the mini-stun as a disable if possible. Rather than trying to inflict the debuff on an enemy at the earliest opportunity, it may be wise to avoid stun-stacking if an ally has already disabled the enemy with a leading stun. Try to work down the enemy with regular attacks while they are disabled, and then cast Infernal Blade in order to impede them once they are able to act.


 * Doom is often considered the most powerful single-target disable in the game, as it silences and mutes its target for at least 15 seconds. Used on the proper enemy, it can convert any 5-vs.-5 fight into an uneven 4-vs.-5 fight.
 * Doom is an extremely powerful ganking spell, since it prevents the target from casting spells or using items, rendering them completely helpless. If Doom can be used to pick off one of the enemy's strongest heroes alone, it can give Doom's team a numerical advantage even before a teamfight happens, discouraging the enemy from engaging at all.
 * Be mindful that Doom's ultimate has a 0.5 second cast animation, longer than his standard cast animation of 0.3 seconds. This can allow particularly reactive enemies to dodge or evade Doom as he attempts to cast the spell, so the element of surprise is very important in allowing Doom to get the spell off. If possible, try to get a teammate with strong initiating abilities and items disable key enemy targets first, so that they cannot react to Doom coming within range to cast his ultimate.
 * The strongest counters to Doom are and, which can cause the ultimate to be entirely wasted or even reflected back to Doom himself. If possible, try to break an enemy Linken's Sphere with a cheap unit-targeted ability first, either from an item or a creep ability obtained through Devour. Teammates can also help Doom by using their cheap unit-targeted abilities to break a Linken's Sphere for him.
 * In teamfights, Doom should generally be targeted on the biggest threat on the enemy team, as preventing them from participating in a teamfight can greatly tip the odds in your team's favor. However, the biggest threat may not always be the enemy's hard carry, so use your best judgment.
 * The target that you choose for Doom is extremely important, as the huge 15 second duration can render spell-dependent heroes such as or  absolutely useless. As well, if you can catch an enemy hero carrying key support items like Mekansm or Pipe of Insight, you can prevent those items from being used during the subsequent fight, all the more so if they are being carried by a hero that has powerful teamfight contribution spells, killing two birds with one stone.
 * Beware that when enemies drop below 25% of their maximum HP, they can be denied by their teammates, preventing Doom and his team from gaining the gold or experience bounty. Additionally, Doom is not guaranteed to kill enemies that break off from a fight, and they can potentially limp away at low health and survive. If the goal is to kill the Doomed target, try to prevent them from escaping in order to prevent any of the two situations from happening.
 * Conversely, remember that once an enemy is Doomed, they lose much of their ability to contribute during an engagement. If the goal is to win a teamfight, the Doomed target can be ignored and their teammates should be focused on and killed, allowing Doom's team to kill the Doomed enemy at their leisure and take map objectives once the rest of the enemy team is defeated.
 * When considering purchasing Aghanim's Scepter, keep in mind that it is best purchased only if the break can be utilized effectively. If the enemy lineup has strong threatening heroes with troublesome passive abilities such as, and , applying a break on them can greatly reduce the threat they pose to your team. However, not building an Aghanim's Scepter lets you use the gold and inventory slot to build a different item, which may counter enemy heroes in a better way.

Items
Starting items:
 * and are important basic regen items to have. Since Doom is a melee hero, he is easy to harass during the laning stage, so having regen can allow him to remain in-lane.
 * gives Doom damage block, which is useful both in lane and while jungling, particularly because of his extremely low base armor.
 * es are cheap and give Doom some all-around attributes. They can be sold later for inventory space at little cost, or used to build into a Magic Wand.
 * In general, a or two are recommended during the laning stage, and especially if jungling, as Doom's abysmal base intelligence means that he runs completely out of mana after casting less than a handful of spells.
 * is a very powerful farming booster for Doom that can allow him to accelerate his farming speed as needed. It boosts his damage against creeps while also providing armor, increasing his physical damage resistance whether it is against creeps or heroes. Using the active on creeps can greatly reduce the amount of time Doom takes to clear a creep camp, and in particular can instantly reduce any neutral creep's health so that Devour can completely digest them before it comes off cooldown.

Early game:
 * provides burst health and mana regen that can often be enough to save Doom's life. As Doom has very low base intelligence, a full-charge Magic Stick can easily replenish more than half of his mana pool in the early game, giving him the mana to cast most of his spells.
 * are important to get early on all heroes. For Doom, increasing his base movement speed increases his mobility with, allowing him to chase down or outrun enemies more easily.
 * gives Doom more armor, vastly alleviating one of his early weaknesses, and gives him some flat mana regen that is very useful on him early on due to his low base intelligence.
 * allows Doom to gank enemy heroes more effectively in the early game, and may be upgraded later on into a.

Core items:
 * give Doom more last-hitting power, allowing him to farm more easily, and gives him a mobility active that can be used alongside Scorched Earth. Mobility is important on Doom as he must be quick to get within range to cast at the right time in ganks and teamfights.
 * is very good item for any role Doom as he can get lots of early gold from Devour to be able to afford it early on.
 * is powerful on Doom for all the same reasons as Magic Stick. The increased attributes make him stronger in all areas, and the greater charge storage allows Doom to replenish much more health and mana. A full-charge Magic Wand can give Doom enough mana to cast any one of his spells as needed.
 * is a good mid-game item for Doom that can be built from an already-purchased Ring of Basilius. It gives Doom more armor, health and mana regen, lifesteal to maintain his health pool, and bonus physical damage. The aura gives his team a bigger edge in teamfights, increasing their overall strength.
 * is mandatory on all heroes. Doom's ultimate makes him a strong ally to have in any engagement due to his ability to completely disable an enemy for an extended period of time.

Situational items:
 * improves Doom's physical damage output, helping him deal damage in fights or farm more efficiently. The active allows Doom to invisibly initiate on enemies while dealing backstab damage prior to casting his ultimate, or can be used as an escape ability as needed.
 * is a good all-around stat booster that has an easy buildup and lets Doom participate more often in early fights. It provides more health, a bigger mana pool, and an aura that increases attack and movement speed to boost his team's mobility and damage output.
 * is a strong item on Doom that solves his armor and attack speed issues, giving him and his team increased physical damage output during fights.
 * grants Doom a versatile active ability to avoid incoming enemy spells, temporarily disable an enemy, or trigger . It also boosts Doom's movement speed which is important for successfully closing-in on enemies and using . Doom also has low base Intelligence so the INT boost and mana regen from this item is appreciated.
 * rectifies Doom's low base intelligence, allowing him to cast his spells much more often, while simultaneously alleviating his armor problem. The active can be used in a teamfight to debilitate enemies' movements, and is powerful when chasing enemies down.
 * is a very useful initiating item on Doom, as he can use it to quickly get within range to disable enemies using any abilities he has gained via the use of, as well as his ultimate. It greatly improves his mobility, allowing him to move around the map or position himself for casting spells more easily.
 * is a very strong item on Doom, as it augments his already impressive strength growth. Once he has sufficient armor, bulking up his health can make him much harder to kill in teamfights, allowing him to outlast the enemy. The passive health regen allows him to completely recover his health pool outside of battle, which lets him be much more active.
 * drastically improves the disabling power of Doom's ultimate, as it allows him to Break enemies rather than simply silencing and muting them, preventing them from contributing at all. Since the debuff does not count down in Doom's presence, it is guaranteed that an enemy is forced out of the fight, turning it into a 4-vs.-5 engagement. The countdown prevention also increases the spell's chances of killing its target if they linger in the area for too long after being afflicted by Doom.
 * is a powerful complement to Doom's ultimate, as it allows him to remove two enemy players from a teamfight, drastically tipping the odds in his team's favor. However, due to Doom's low intelligence and the high mana cost of refreshing cooldowns, Doom should increase the size of his mana pool before attempting to purchase this.
 * can give Doom increased survivability against physical damage by giving him more health as well as evasion against auto-attacks, helping to offset his armor vulnerability. The active is also powerful in eliminating a target's ability to attack, a powerful complement to his ultimate if the target decides to stand their ground and fight.
 * turns Doom into a walking hazard, as it inflicts burn damage to all nearby enemies (as well as stacking with Scorched Earth), and augments his attack damage. The Burn also induces a blind on all nearby enemies, causing them to miss some attacks and giving Doom more survivability against physical attacks.


 * It is possible to build any type of boots on Doom, as his flexibility allows him to be played in many different ways.
 * is usually a good pickup on a support Doom, as his low base intelligence often limits his ability to cast spells or use active abilities on items. It also can be upgraded into later.
 * can be powerful to get on a support Doom, however, it is also powerful on a roaming Doom who wishes to play aggressively early on and can give him a powerful early-game advantage even as a carry. The armor drastically increases his early-game survivability, while the increased movement speed can allow him to chase down enemies quickly, especially once combined with Scorched Earth. Finally, the health regen allows him to recover health between fights, allowing him to quickly prepare for another gank.
 * can be useful for giving Doom good physical damage output due to the extra attack speed, and the extra attributes allow him to increase the size of his health or mana pools depending on what is needed. Treads are a powerful alternative to Phase Boots in any situation.
 * can free up an inventory slot to allow Doom to get a full six slots of core items. It additionally improves his mobility, both through increased base movement speed and higher bonus through Scorched Earth.


 * is a powerful mid-game item that gives Doom many powerful benefits. The increased intelligence greatly offsets his low base mana pool, the armor alleviates his weakness to physical damage, and the active works alongside his huge health pool to punish the enemy should they decide to attack him.
 * can greatly offset Doom's vulnerability to physical damage, and make him much beefier overall. It is a useful mid-game item that can be upgraded into a powerful utility item.
 * is a decent mid-game item on Doom, as it gives him armor as well as many useful stats. It greatly increases his attack power and survivability, and the health loss from Unholy Strength can be negated by Scorched Earth.
 * can be extremely important to get on Doom, so that he can prevent himself from being chain-disabled and killed before getting his ultimate off. As well, once he gets farmed enough he needs to prevent himself from being disabled in teamfights so that he can take the enemy team head-on.
 * greatly increases Doom's attack speed, giving him much more damage output with his physical attacks. The increased night vision also gives him better situational awareness, allowing him to spot enemies farther out in order to initiate on them with Doom. It can also be purchased as a seventh-slot item and consumed to give Doom a permanent attack speed bonus, given his ability to quickly farm using Devour.
 * , upgraded from a purchased Shadow Blade, gives Doom more damage output and health, and increases his initiating potential by allowing him to deal more backstab damage and inflict break on enemies prior to casting Doom. Its break can also be used alongside that of an Aghanim's-upgraded Doom to debilitate two enemies simultaneously.
 * can be a good item to build to give Doom enough attack speed to offset his low agility growth. Using the active on yourself can discourage the enemy from focusing you down for fear of proccing Static Charge. It is a powerful complement to Doom's tankiness once he has enough armor and health.
 * is a powerful all-around stat booster, giving Doom more health, mana, armor and attack speed, to make him a much bigger threat to the enemy team. The attack modifier allows Doom to greatly slow enemies, and gives him a strong mobility advantage when combined with Scorched Earth.
 * is an unorthodox item to build on Doom, but can be a powerful hybrid caster-survivability item. It greatly improves Doom's health and mana, giving him more survivability and casting power, while the cooldown reduction allows him to apply Infernal Blade's debuff and interrupt enemies more frequently in fights and reduces his ultimate's cooldown to allow it to be used more regularly. The spell lifesteal also greatly increases Doom's survivability, as he can lifesteal off of Infernal Blade's scaling damage, Scorched Earth and Doom in the middle of battle.
 * can be useful to get on Doom once he has built enough attack speed to increase the chances of proccing a bash, as it greatly increases the strength of his attacks while also providing some strength to increase his health and base damage. The active ability can also be used to instantly disable a target, through spell immunity if needed.


 * Doom's flexibility allows him to be played as a non-core hero as well, as he can contribute to teamfights with his ultimate alone. His ability to farm with Devour allows him to build items even when not given farm priority.
 * is a useful item on a support-utility Doom, as it gives him stats across the board and a respectable amount of armor. The active also heals Doom himself and teammates, however, its high mana cost means that Doom must increase the size of his mana pool if he decides to purchase this.
 * can be a good item to get on Doom due to the increased intelligence and strength it provides, increasing the size of Doom's mana and health pools, respectively. The summoned warriors give increased contribution in teamfights, and they can benefit from Scorched Earth's healing as well.
 * is a good utility item that vastly increases Doom's survivability against physical damage. The active ability can further protect all teammates from physical damage for some time as well.
 * gives Doom a much bigger mana pool, good mana regen, good stats across the board and a ranged hard-disable that is a powerful complement to his ultimate. It is also useful on a carry Doom due to the Hex alone.
 * greatly improves Doom's overall survivability, as its aura can make him much harder to bring down at low health. The active is very powerful in teamfights for healing and replenishing mana, and can remove debuffs from Doom himself.