Venomancer

Lesale Deathbringer the Venomancer is a ranged agility hero who is focused on dealing damage over time and slowing enemies down. While unassuming due to his mediocre stats and low attack range, he can inflict surprising amounts of gradual damage with his poisonous abilities if left alone. Venomancer can unleash a Venomous Gale to infect enemies in a straight line, drastically slowing them while dealing damage over time. His attacks are just as hazardous thanks to his lethal Poison Sting, which adds a toxic effect to his normal attacks, poisoning opposing Heroes for a great amount of damage over a duration. Plague Ward lets him summon a sentient ward to a targeted point, which attacks enemies or structures. While weak on first use its power grows in numbers, which means the more the wards are placed the deadlier they become. This gives him good versatility, providing vision, pushing power, and a helpful block, preventing enemies from running away when trapped in a sticky situation. Venomancer's most dangerous ability is Poison Nova: though it is not lethal and does not kill an enemy by itself, the damage it inflicts is tremendous, the duration is very long, and its wide area of effect makes it difficult to avoid. It is mostly used to initiate battles, since Poison Nova cannot quickly inflict damage but rather degrades its targets over time. When combined together, the Venomancer is a powerful killing machine, like a virus, slowly killing enemies with venom and poisons. Despite being considered by most players as a support, because of his slowing capabilities, extra ward vision, and being item independent, this does not hinder his power to gank and kill enemies, especially in the earliest parts of the game, and with enough kills, farm, and domination, Venomancer can transition into a semi-carry, with formidable venomous power and deadly specialties.

Recommended items
Starting items:
 * and  allow you to stay in lane longer without going back to the fountain.
 * gives you some armor while laning, and can be upgraded to a from the side shop.
 * As a support, purchasing the  is essential for your team.
 * is highly recommended in the laning stage, as Venomancer is highly dependent on casting spells in order to be effective. Venomancer's base mana pool and intelligence growth are quite poor, and casting once at level 1 drains more than half of your mana pool.

Early game:
 * should be purchased if you have enough gold to do so at the 3 minute mark. Giving your mid the ability to retrieve needed items more easily, as well as bottle crow as necessary, are essential to giving your team a major strategic advantage.
 * provides good regeneration, especially if you are laning against opponents who keep casting their abilities.
 * are important to get early on Venomancer, as his base movement speed is quite low. More mobility allows you to position yourself for your spells, particularly getting within range to cast.
 * solves most of your problems in the early game. It gives flat mana regeneration, which is useful due to Venomancer's low base intelligence, as well as good attributes and some armor. The mana regen allows you to place s without running out of mana, and the armor aura can also help you push lanes more easily due to giving your lane creeps more survivability.
 * s are crucial on Venomancer as a support item. As he can place Plague Wards through terrain and fog of war to get vision, he can easily place Sentry Wards alongside them to de-ward enemy Observer Wards. Since Plague Wards are summoned units, he can "set and forget" them after finding an Observer Ward, rather than risk getting ganked by staying to de-ward.

Core items:
 * gives attributes and regeneration: it is always handy to have this item for emergencies.
 * are a good purchase as the extra attributes can be used either to increase your intelligence to make casting easier or to increase your strength to give you more survivability. Additionally, the bonus attack speed helps you with applying to enemies with your attacks.
 * greatly increases the killing potential of : it can deal tremendous amounts of magical damage to the entire enemy team, making it perfect for initiations when assisted by teammates.
 * s are a core requirement as a support. While you can place Plague Wards to scout enemy movement, they are limited in vision, duration and sight range, and can be far more easily spotted and destroyed.
 * is necessary on virtually all heroes, but is important in Venomancer's case due to his ability to show up to teamfights to cast his nukes and slows, and defend a tower and counter-push at the same time. As well, his low mobility and lack of escape abilities means that having a TP scroll on hand at all times should be the case.

Situational items:
 * provides attributes and armor for Venomancer as well as the item's active, Magic Weakness, which increases the effectiveness of all of Venomancer's spells and even his passive. Though not as powerful as Aghanim's Scepter regarding Poison Nova, it is much cheaper and easier to build. Combining both can result in an astounding amount of damage over time, and also benefits teammates if you have a caster-heavy lineup.
 * gives a lot of mana regeneration, some movement speed and intelligence, eliminating your mobility and mana issues almost entirely. It also makes positioning for casting your spells easier by disabling an opponent for a short time, and can be used to temporarily save yourself after casting Poison Nova amongst the middle of the enemy team.
 * is the best choice if you are your team's main initiator. Use it to position yourself before casting Poison Nova and/or Venomous Gale.
 * gives more damage, more attack speed and a useful escape mechanism. You can also use its ability to initiate on the enemy team and cast your ultimate.
 * is a very expensive item and generally not recommended when playing as a support. It drastically increases Venomancer's attack speed and damage, as well as giving him evasion and a small amount of armor, allowing him to weather physical attacks better and apply Poison Sting to multiple targets over a short amount of time.
 * solves all of your mana problems and gives you more physical damage per second. Additionally, the silence can be used to disable enemies, which is useful both as a semi-carry and support.
 * gives Venomancer more overall stats, as well as movement speed. Its active can be used to remove debuffs from yourself, and the illusions can assist in applying slows to enemy targets.
 * gives Venomancer stats across the board, and the increased movement speed can offset his low mobility somewhat. The extra attack speed also helps him apply his Poison Sting more easily.
 * is a highly expensive item, but can give Venomancer many strong benefits. The item grants increased HP and mana, as well as additional mana regen, giving Venomancer more staying power. More importantly, the cooldown reduction allows Venomancer to place Plague Wards much more frequently, and the spell lifesteal combined with his powerful damage-over-time spells, particularly Poison Nova, give him immense survivability in any fight as he can regenerate health almost as quickly as he takes damage.
 * is a stronger permanent investment but also risks surrendering the gem to the enemy if they can successfully kill Venomancer.
 * are highly recommended on Venomancer, as his ultimate costs a large amount of mana and his mana pool is otherwise extremely limited. As a support, you also help your team by being able to replenish their mana as well as your own, allowing you to cast your spells more often.
 * is useful on Venomancer if you are having trouble farming a Blink Dagger. The increased mana pool helps greatly with his ability to cast spells, and the item's active ability serves as a useful escape mechanism on a frail hero without escape abilities.
 * is very helpful for giving Venomancer protection against physical damage. It can be used to buy yourself some time if you are jumped on by the enemy team in a gank or teamfight, or allow you to survive long enough to cast Venomous Gale after using your ultimate.
 * can be a very useful utility item. The magic resistance gives Venomancer survivability against magic nukes, while the attack speed facilitates the utility of Poison Sting. The active can be used to initiate with Poison Nova if a Blink Dagger or Force Staff is unavailable, and can be used to shield yourself or a teammate from magic nukes, or as an escape tool if the enemy has no detection.
 * is a relatively cheap item that gives Venomancer a lot of HP, a lot of intelligence to increase the size of his mana pool, and a very long range slow that can help him with initiating and ganking. The active, when combined with Venomous Gale, allows Venomancer to slow an enemy down to minimum movement speed.
 * is expensive, but provides Venomancer with many strong benefits. It gives him a much larger mana pool to use, allowing him to better utilize his spells, and gives him armor for resisting physical damage. The auras add to his ability to slow enemy heroes, and the active can be used in conjunction with Poison Nova to slow enemies enough to catch them in its radius, as well as add an additional movement speed slow on top of Venomous Gale and Poison Sting.
 * is a very farm-intensive item to purchase, however it permanently solves all of Venomancer's mana issues while also giving him an instant hard disable that he can cast on the enemy in a teamfight, even in the late game.

Trivia

 * Venomancer's name, Lesale, may be a reference to "Le Sale", which is French for "The Dirty" or "The Nasty".
 * In Warcraft DotA, Venomancer's hero model was a hydralisk. Hydralisks are a ranged combat unit of the Zerg, an alien race in Blizzard Entertainment's RTS game Starcraft. Hydralisks are a very common and well-known image in Blizzard games.

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