Doom

Lucifer, otherwise known as Doom, is a melee strength Hero with strong farming capabilities, good versatility, and one of the strongest single-target spells in the game. His very low starting armor makes him vulnerable to harassment, but his abilities and high health allow him to lane or even jungle quite effectively. As a ruthless demon, he possesses malicious abilities revolving around greed, fire, and death. His Devour ability allows him to consume creeps, providing additional gold and allowing him to absorb any powers that creep had, which potentially allows him to have up to six total hero abilities. Because there are numerous neutral creep abilities to choose from to supplement his other abilities, the role that he chooses to play is quite flexible. Scorched Earth serves numerous purposes, allowing him to chase, escape, regenerate, and slowly burn his enemies all at once. LVL? Death is a spammable nuke that does either modest or massive damage to the enemy, depending on the enemy's level. Finally, his namesake ult Doom serves as one of the strongest single target lockdown abilities in the game. A unit afflicted with Doom takes intense damage over a lengthy duration, while having all his active abilities - even those from items - completely silenced. With numerous expensive items in his arsenal and a key enemy hero rendered useless for a teamfight, a farmed Doom ensures that nobody can extinguish his flame.

Tips

 * One of Doom's greatest weaknesses is his minimal armor and extremely low agility, making him very vulnerable to physical damage despite being a strength hero. 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 very strong 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 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 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. As well, Devour allows him to obtain gold without being given major farm priority, meaning that if given the priority of a hard support he can get gold to buy items that help him or his team.
 * Under certain circumstances and with certain items, Doom is capable of jungling. If your team's lineup prevents you from playing in the safe lane, taking the jungle is a solid option.


 * is one of Doom's strongest spells, as it allows him to get an early gold and experience advantage by consuming large jungle creeps, gaining bonus gold while doing so. It should generally be the first spell that is maxed out, as it allows Doom to accelerate his farm and obtain early levels and fast core items if left alone by the enemy team.
 * 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, as 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.
 * Keep in mind, Doom must digest any creep that has been devoured before he can use Devour again, even if it has come off of 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.
 * As well, remember that you get the bonus gold at the end of the digestion period, and that you lose the debuff upon death. Therefore, if you are killed while you are digesting a creep, you will 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.
 * gives Doom some mobility while simultaneously giving him HP regen and magical burn damage in an area around him. At least one early level is recommended, as the movement speed boost can be critical for evading enemy ganks, or for approaching a gank target while applying the burn damage to them.
 * 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.
 * Be very mindful of Scorched Earth's extremely long cooldown at all levels. While it costs comparatively little mana to cast, the long cooldown means that using it will leave 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. As such, only use Scorched Earth when absolutely necessary, as the mobility and survivability it grants can make a huge difference if you are ganked.
 * is a very unorthodox spell that is difficult to use yet can produce powerful results under the right circumstances.
 * One thing to keep in mind about LVL? Death is that it applies a mini-stun to its target upon cast. This makes it uniquely qualified for interrupting channeled spells and items, particularly Town Portal Scrolls.
 * In general, it is wise to keep LVL? Death in reserve and use it as an initiating spell on a target. Doing so allows you to break an enemy's Linken's Sphere prior to casting Doom on them, which saves you from wasting your ultimate.
 * The rule of thumb about LVL? Death is to never level it immediately when you can. As the spell applies its bonus damage based on the current level of the enemy, you must keep constant track of what enemy players' levels are, and keep LVL? Death at a certain level such that it meets the multiplier requirement. This means that it is not irregular to be walking around with unspent skill points because increasing the spell's level will reduce the damage it deals to an important target.
 * Doom will not have the mana to cast LVL? Death more than once (if at all) in the early game, despite its low cooldown, so it is generally not recommended to get a level in the skill at all until you have gotten more mana or are ready to enter fights. Casting the spell only once will drastically deplete your mana, preventing you from using any other spells.
 * Under the right circumstances, LVL? Death can kill any enemy hero within 3 to 5 casts of the spell, if they fall under its multiplier. Therefore, once your mana pool is high enough and you have selected a target to match its multiplier to, you can make short work of them despite any amount of farm they have.
 * is considered one of the most powerful disables in the game, as it silences its target and prevents the use of items for at least 15 seconds. Used on the proper target, it can convert an even 5 vs 5 fight into an uneven 4 vs 5 fight.
 * 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 who has powerful teamfight contribution spells, killing two birds with one stone.
 * While Aghanim's Scepter is extremely powerful on Doom, it is not absolutely necessary as a core item. When deciding whether to build it or not, look at the enemy team's lineup and see if any of them have passive abilities that can cause trouble for your team even if they have been silenced and prevented from using their item's active abilities. For instance, still has tremendous passive evasion and can still inflict highly damaging critical hits even while silenced, and  can still resist tremendous amounts of damage and proc large amounts of Quill Sprays with his passive, but both will be completely neutered if those passives are taken away. Conversely, an  or a carry  can be rendered useless in a teamfight without requiring removal of their passives, since their damage output relies on attack modifiers that will be disabled by the silence alone. Not building an Aghanim's Scepter can instead allow you to use the inventory slot to build a different item that allows you to counter enemy heroes in a better way.
 * Due to Doom's flexibility, he can benefit from building many different types of items, depending on what role he is playing for his team.
 * In general, a or two is recommended during the laning stage (and especially if jungling), no matter what role Doom is played in, as Doom's abysmal base intelligence means that he will run completely out of mana after casting less than a handful of spells.
 * can be extremely powerful on a carry Doom as he can get lots of early gold from Devour to be able to afford it early on. As well, the item's attack speed can accelerate his farm somewhat by offsetting his long attack animation, making last-hitting in lane easier and increasing his damage output when killing neutral camps.
 * 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.
 * 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 HP 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. In addition, the HP loss from toggling it on can be negated by Scorched Earth's heal.
 * 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.
 * can be a good item to build to give Doom enough attack speed to offset his low agility growth. As well, using the active on yourself can discourage the enemy from focusing you down for fear of proccing the shield discharge. It is a powerful complement to Doom's tankiness once he has enough armor and HP.
 * 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 HP 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.
 * are not unheard of on a support Doom, as his low base intelligence often limits his ability to cast spells or use active abilities on items.
 * 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.
 * is useful for making Doom beefier as well as giving him much more mana to use. It is a good cheap utility item as it can slow a target from a long distance away, allowing you to close the distance to cast your ultimate.
 * 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 HP 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.

Trivia

 * Several of Doom's abilities are inspired by Final Fantasy's Blue Mages. LVL? Death was based off of the Level 5 Death ability and the mechanics of a LVL? S-flare. Devour is highly similar to Quina Quen's eat and cook ability from Final Fantasy IX. His ultimate, Doom, also shares the same name of another Blue Mage ability, but the mechanics differ.
 * His name, Lucifer, is taken from the Bible's Book of Isaiah and translates roughly to "morning star". It is often used to refer to the Biblical Devil (or Satan), thus fitting Doom's evil and demonic image.
 * Doom's ultimate icon depicts a pentacle which, despite its popular connotation as Satanic/"evil" mark, is actually a Pagan symbol of protection. For its common "evil" symbolism to apply, the pentagram has to be inverted; this only occasionally occurs in-game, as the "star" inside the circle of the ability's particle effect slowly rotates.
 * One of his responses upon acquiring the Invisibility rune (" doom_invis_03.mp3 Heheheh, see no evil.") refers to the and their associated phrase: "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."
 * His ultimate and signature ability, Doom, derived from the ultimate of the Pit Lord, a playable hero in Warcraft III: Frozen Throne. The original ability varied in that it was only castable on non-hero units, is non-removable until death, and upon the target unit's death, it would spawn a Doomguard. The Doomguard's model was Lucifer's hero model in DotA.