Why is Shadow demon such a bad hero?

[Danger Dwarf]

As many people know he has near a 40% winrate even though he is somewhat easier than other supports, and has many spells that I consider to be very powerful. I do not know if it is the hero itself or simply the community that makes is winrate so abysmal, but I would like an explanation on why his winrate is so low.

The guy has some powerful skills at his disposal. His first skill can be used both aggresively and defensively meaning that it can effectively euls an enemy hero out of a fight preventing him from attacking, and then spawns two illusions with decent damage to fight for you, or it can be used defenisively disrupting someones combo or save an ally from death. His second skill allows for a 50% pure damage debuff to be applied to an enemy, and the best part about it is that if someone gets the debuff before activating spell immunity it still effects them. His third skill gives him early/mid game presence by causing alot of harass in lane with the respectable possibillity of 1k+ damage. Finally, his last abillity is a litteral counter to mobile heroes and bkb carries because it pushes there moves speed down to pitiful numbers and allows your team to easily avoid or kill that enemy.

Coupled with his utillity it makes it hard to believe that he should have a 40% winrate. I can agree that he most likely will need a follow up in order to maximise his effectiveness, but other than that he seems like a solid hero, so any explanation as to why he is so bad would be helpful.

[Woody]

Well his main problem is that the poison takes so long to get stacks up on and requires the enemy not to avoid it for that amount of time. Oh and the soul catcher amps the damage but keeps the damage type so if it's physical it will be 50% extra physical etc. His very low health is also an issue.

Honestly the hero is good though so I agree his 40% winrate is down to people not playing him well.

[lulborne]

Disruption is pretty good, but you can mess up a lot if used incorrectly, Shadow Catcher is very hard to land in teamfights or when the enemy is hugging the creeps, it's not that easy to land many poisons in someone (but it's quite to counter pushes) and his ult is pretty good, but is better when you are against teams with lots of buffs that he can purge.

Overall, he's nice, but he's such a pain to play with a random team that is probably not worth it, plus, I think he's situational. I would pick him against Omni or heroes with good illusions. Probably nice against LC too.

[The Spu]

He's an okay hero. Especially a couple patches ago, he was picked very often in pro matches. He's just not as easy to use, you have to have a good sense for when and how to use your skills.

[Danger Dwarf]

Originally posted by woody36:

Well his main problem is that the poison takes so long to get stacks up on and requires the enemy not to avoid it for that amount of time. Oh and the soul catcher amps the damage but keeps the damage type so if it's physical it will be 50% extra physical etc. His very low health is also an issue.

Honestly the hero is good though so I agree his 40% winrate is down to people not playing him well.

In the laning phase it does impose a bit of fear because of the fact that they have to avoid it or die hence the term respectable. His stacks IMO aren't what make him a force to be reckoned with since he needs his other skills to begin building them up on enemy heroes. I honestly did not know that it kept the damage type, but still 50% damage is still something to be cautious about. His low health pool is the main reason I build utillity items on him, because it gives him atleast a little bit of survival, but I will agree that his lack of an escape mechanism coupled with his low health makes him an easy kill even with a defensive disruption.

Originally posted by bot hunt m8:

Disruption is pretty good, but you can mess up a lot if used incorrectly, Shadow Catcher is very hard to land in teamfights or when the enemy is hugging the creeps, it's not that easy to land many poisons in someone (but it's quite to counter pushes) and his ult is pretty good, but is better when you are against teams with lots of buffs that he can debuff.

Overall, he's nice, but he's such a pain to play with a random team that is probably not worth it.

Disruption is definitely one of those spells that takes game sense on knowing when to use it, or else you may kill a teamate or save an enemy by mistake, but if used properly the level 1 euls is extremely helpful. Yeah he seems a bit situational, but he can work well in more than 1 specific situation, so he isn't cateragised under the "too situational to be helpful" category

[iPunkBuster]

I pick SD if my teamates have good picks so i can farm dagon to abuse skill 2 :D