Queen of Pain

Akasha the Queen of Pain is a ranged intelligence Hero who uses her abilities to close in and deal huge area damage to the enemy. She is typically played as a ganker with her ability to appear in battle and deal damage in quick succession, as well as hunt down fleeing heroes with ease. Akasha is very adept at getting kills early in the game, and transitions very well into a semi-carry if she acquires the proper items. Queen of Pain's abilities require good timing to be used properly, but are devastating in the right hands. She is a very high-focus hero; her frailty and high mana costs require her player to constantly exercise pragmatism and calculations in how to use her with caution, without maligning her huge offensive capabilities. Because of the alarming necessity of gaining a level advantage early-game, and the dire consequences of failing to do this, she is recommended for intermediate players.

Tips

 * Queen of Pain's combinations must be executed with extreme speed to be successful, as her two main damaging skills are area-of-effect and consequently can be avoided with a quick reaction. A typical combo is to Blink, Scream of Pain, Shadow Strike, and if necessary, Sonic Wave to finish the job. If the enemy flees however, you can kill them simply by blinking ahead of them and continuing to use Scream of Pain.
 * Note however that because her two main damaging spells are area-of-effect, they should be positioned to affect as many enemies as possible. For this reason, it is best to save Sonic Wave until such time as you can hit multiple enemy heroes with it.
 * Faceless Void's Chronosphere and Enigma's Black Hole work extremely well for setting up a Sonic Wave for maximum targets.
 * Akasha is superb at chasing her prey, but is very delicate and is often in more danger from enemy towers than enemy heroes. Gearing for HP regeneration may be advisable, as in a critical situation you can Blink to an inaccessible place and wait to recuperate. Bottle will also help with this.
 * If being chased (a common situation for Akasha), an often-useful tactic is to blink behind the enemies pursuing you. They will typically assume you blinked ahead and continue on in that direction, allowing for an escape.
 * In a late-game encounter, Akasha is best used by hiding until such time as the enemies' more powerful spells are on cooldown, allowing her to Blink in and inflict huge damage on multiple enemies owing to her AoE capabilities without putting her at risk of being killed by powerful spells.
 * A more cautious strategy is to run in without using Blink, saving it for a potential escape. This may be necessary against high-damage enemy heroes, as Akasha is very frail and in encounters should try to avoid being attacked at all.
 * Similarly to Lina, Akasha has very high burst damage capabilities, but is delicate and not suited to long encounters because of her spells' high mana costs. This can be remedied with items such as Bloodstone and Linken's Sphere, as well as scepter to reduce Sonic Wave's cooldown.
 * Queen of Pain is countered extremely well by Bloodseeker, his Rupture will damage you hugely if you Blink with it active; and he is capable of an extended silence which will render you almost useless. Picking Queen of Pain against a Bloodseeker is very rarely a good decision.

Trivia

 * Queen of Pain's name, Akasha, is the name of the fifth element in Hinduism which represents the sky.
 * It is also the name of the Queen of the Dead from Anne Rice's novels the Vampire Chronicles, a much more likely source for Queen of Pain's name.