Shadow Fiend

Shadow Fiend

#39

19 + 2.7

25 + 3.6

16 + 2.2

Grants the following bonuses per level:
	+59.4HP and +0.27HP regeneration
	+0.6 armor and 3.6 attack speed +3.6 Main Attack Damage
	+26.4MP and +0.11MP regeneration +0.1% base magic resistance

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538 +2.15

267 +1.1

0 (4.17) Armor (672.61 EHP)

26.6% Magic Resist (732.97 EHP)

16 - 22 (41 ‒ 47) ▶️ Damage (44 Avg)

1200 Projectile Speed Melee units have their projectile speed set to 900, if they should ever need it.

525 Attack Range (800)

100 (125) Attack Speed (1.6 BAT) Attacks per Second is defined as ΣAS / BAT / 100

0.5 + 0.54 Animation

305 ▶️ Move Speed

0.9 Turn Rate This unit takes 0.116s to turn 180°.

27 Collision Size

24 Bound Radius

1800 / 800 Vision Range

Ethereal Gib Type

npc_dota_hero_nevermore

2011-05-26 Released

2005-03-01 (6.00)

Competitive Span 2011-05-26 — Present

Version Control This article has been updated to the latest version (7.41f) and is mostly accurate.

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Unleashes the souls of fallen enemies for damage.
Capturing Souls from every kill he makes, Shadow Fiend is always gathering his power. Armor fails within the Presence of the Dark Lord, leaving foes no choice but to scramble. Every assault, each carefully aimed Shadowraze kills an enemy, brings him closer to his acme of potency. The Shadow Fiend pauses to charge his demonic energies, then, with a flourish of his lightless wings, unleashes his gathered souls in all directions to obliterate enemies in a howling Requiem of Souls.
Roles:	Carry Nuker
Adjectives	Demon, Flying, Red Legs ( 0 )

So, you're curious where I come from? There's one easy way to find out for yourself.

▶️  Nevermore, the Shadow Fiend

Aghanim's Scepter Upgrade:

The souls returns back to Nevermore once expanding to its max travel radius, damages all affected enemy units again, and heals its master in the process.

Reduces cooldown.

Aghanim's Shard Upgrade:

Applies a stacking movement speed debuff on all affected enemy units.

Reduces all Shadowrazes' cooldown by a flat amount per hero hit.

Shadowraze Instant Attacks	25	+30% Feast of Souls Cast Animation Speed
+0.2s Requiem of Souls Debuff Duration per Line	20	+5 Necromastery Max Stacks
+2 Feast of Souls Necromastery Stack per Hero	15	+1.5 Presence of the Dark Lord Armor Reduction
+30 Feast of Souls Attack Speed	10	+30 Shadowraze Stack Damage
▃ ▃ ▃ ▃ ▃ ▃ ▃ +2 All / / Attributes

Necromastery

Ability

Passive

Affects

Self

Grants bonus attack damage per stack from unit kills, and loses a portion of stacks upon death.

Max Stacks: 20 ( 25)

Stacks Lost on Death Factor: 0.7

Stack Gain per Kill: 1

Attack Damage Bonus per Stack: 1

Hero kills are more effective and grants a greater stack.

Stack Gain per Hero Kill: 4

Innate Properties
The higher Nevermore's level, the greater the attack damage bonus per stack granted.

Lvl Up Interval: 6

Attack Damage Bonus Increase: 0.8

Innate Properties
Increases the damage for all Shadowrazes per Necromastery stack.

Spell Damage Bonus per Stack: 2

Innate Properties
The Requiem of Souls create a damaging line projectile per Necromastery stack, with a number of stack limit.

Max Stacks Limit: 20

Min Degree per Line: 18°

This ability levels up with Shadow Fiend.

Harvested souls swirl in and out of the Abysm, empowering the Shadow Fiend to increase the size of his collection.

• Details
• Interactions
• Status Effects
• Misc.
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• 
  • Grants flat bonus attack damage stack from killing any units, regardless of the ability visual effects, including from denies.
    • Considers clones and the Spirit Bear as heroes, illusions and other creep-heroes as creeps.
  • Does not grant stacks from killing the following units:
    • Allied Observer Wards and Sentry Wards denies.
    • Buildings
    • The Double.
    • Illusions
    • Items
    • Runes
    • Ward-type units.
  • 
    • The current number of stacks is rounded down upon death and is defined as:
      • EXPR
        ⌊ 0.7 × f(Stack) ⌋
        • Hence, Nevermore can never lose all stacks.
        • Does not lose stacks with reincarnation sources.

• EXPR
  • Flat bonus attack damage: (1 + 0.8 × SelfLvl / 6) × f(Stack)

Interactions: Self-Illusions

Nevermore's created illusions starts with 0 stacks, and can gain stacks themselves.

Does not benefit from the flat bonus attack damage component.

Interactions: Break Sources

Disables the buff stack gain.

However, existing stacks are not removed.

modifier_nevermore_necromastery

Necromastery: Stored souls granting an additional x bonus damage.

MODIFIER_PROPERTY_PREATTACK_BONUS_DAMAGE
MODIFIER_EVENT_ON_ATTACK
MODIFIER_EVENT_ON_ATTACK_LANDED
MODIFIER_EVENT_ON_DEATH

In-game Ability Description

Shadow Fiend steals the soul from units he kills, gaining 1.35 bonus damage per soul. Hero kills grant 4 souls. On death, he releases 30% of them from bondage.

• 
  • The greater the stack, the more red particles fly around Nevermore's chest area.

Hero Model

Ability

Passive / Channeling

Affects

Self

Nevermore's hero model has the following hidden innate abilities.

He may only perform or utilize the ability's functions upon a successful channeling.

Details

Hidden Innate Abilities

Tap on the innate abilities for more details.

Shadowraze

▶️

Ability

No

Affects

Enemy Units

Damage

Spell / Magical / Instant Attack / Physical

Adds a stacking damage amplifier on the target that causes the enemy to take bonus Shadowraze damage per stack.

Has no stack limit.

Cast Animation: 0.55 + 0

Effect Radius: 250

Max Stacks:

Base Damage: 85/150/215/280

Damage Increase per Stack: 35/50/65/80 ( 36)

Stack Duration: 6

Instant Attack Factor: ( 1)

Shadow Fiend razes the ground directly in front of him, dealing damage to enemy units in the area.

Distance: 200

Shadow Fiend razes the ground a short distance away from him, dealing damage to enemy units in the area.

Distance: 450

Shadow Fiend razes the ground a longer distance away from him, dealing damage to enemy units in the area.

Distance: 700

Innate Properties
Increases the damage for all Shadowrazes per Necromastery stack.

Spell Damage Increase per Stack: 2

Aghanim's Shard Upgrade
Applies a stacking movement speed debuff on all affected enemy units.

Move Speed Slow Increase per Stack: ( 12%)

Debuff Duration: ( 7)

Aghanim's Shard Upgrade
Reduces all Shadowrazes' cooldown by a flat amount per hero hit.

Cooldown Reduction per Hero Hit: ( 2)

9

75

Nevermore's trademark for harvesting souls.

• Details
• Interactions
• Status Effects
• Misc.
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• Leveling any of the three Shadowraze abilities levels the others as well.
  • Has the following hotkeys:
    • Q
      Z
      Shadowraze (Near)
    • W
      X
      Shadowraze (Medium)
    • E
      C
      Shadowraze (Far)
  • Appears in the dedicated first, second, and third ability slot respectively.

• 
  • Shadowraze (Near)
    • 
    • Affects enemy units 50-distance (PO) behind Nevermore and up to 450-distance (OQ) in front of him.
  • Shadowraze (Medium)
    • 
    • Affects enemy units between 200 (OP) to 700-distance (OQ) in front of him.
  • Shadowraze (Far)
    • 
    • Affects enemy units between 450 (OP) to 950-distance (OQ) in front of him.

• 
  • Does not affect the following units:
    • Couriers
  • The ability effects are applied as follows:
    1. SHARD NOTES
       The cooldown reduction per enemy hero hit, with the following properties:
       • Each Shadowraze ability independently checks for the amount of enemy hero hit upon cast, and does not affect the other Shadowraze's cooldown.
       • Considers clones and the Spirit Bear as heroes, illusions and other creep-heroes as creeps.
       • Applies the flat reduction bonus before other percentage-based cooldown reduction sources.
    2. nevermore_shadowraze_debuff
       • Applies a debuff on the affected enemy units that counts the amount of Shadowraze hits within the debuff duration.
       • This either increases the stack count or applies the debuff.
       • Has no stack limit.
       • SHARD NOTES
         Applies the movement speed slow.
    3. The magical spell damage.
       • Hence, the first stack applied by the ability does not increases the spell damage.
    4. TALENT NOTES
       Adds a passive component to all three Shadowrazes.
       • 
         • Applies an instant attack instance on affected enemy units within the effect radius.
         • Neither procs attack modifiers nor on-cast effects.
       • Has True Strike.
       • Not affected by disarm sources.

• EXPR
  • First spell damage instance: 85/150/215/280 + (2 × f(NecromasteryStack))
  • Subsequent spell damage instances: 85/150/215/280 + ((85/150/215/280 + 30) × f(ShadowrazeStack)) + (2 × f(NecromasteryStack))
  • 
    • Movement speed slow: 12% × f(ShadowrazeStack)
    • Current cooldown reduction: 2 × f(EnemyHero)

Interactions: Ability Draft

Shadowraze (Medium) is a stand-alond ability, the drafting hero begins the game with 3 charges.

The other Shadowraze abilities are unavailable.

modifier_nevermore_shadowraze_debuff

Shadowraze: Receiving x bonus damage from each Shadowraze attack. Slowed by x%.

MODIFIER_PROPERTY_MOVESPEED_BONUS_PERCENTAGE
MODIFIER_PROPERTY_TOOLTIP

modifier_nevermore_shadowraze_counter

Hidden Modifier

In-game Ability Description

Shadow Fiend razes the ground directly in front of him, dealing damage to enemy units in the area, dealing bonus damage based on his current Necromastery Soul amount. Adds a stacking damage amplifier on the target that causes the enemy to take bonus Shadowraze damage per stack.

• COSMETIC
  • Applies a 3-second shadowraze_counter debuff on affected enemy heroes to count successful Shadowraze hits.
  • Although only the Demon Eater cosmetic item makes use of it, the counter is always placed.

D

E

Feast of Souls

Ability

No

Affects

Self

Grants self bonus movement speed and bonus attack speed upon cast.

Cast Animation: 0 + 0.2

Move Speed Bonus: 4%/6%/8%/10%

Attack Speed Bonus: 35/50/65/80 ( 65/80/95/110)

Buff Duration: 8

Cast Animation Factor: ( 0.7)

Grants Necromastery stacks from enemy units within the radius per interval.

The same enemy units can only increase the stack gain once per cast.

Effect Radius: 600

Stack Gain Interval: 0.5

Max Stack Gain: 4/6/8/10

Max Stack Increase: 4/6/8/10

Number of Valid Units per Interval: 2

Stack per Enemy Hero: 3 ( 5)

Creeps grants a lesser stack value.

Stack per Enemy Creep: 1

After the buff duration, Nevermore loses the Necromastery stack corresponding to the enemy units who are still alive.

For a duration, Nevermore retains the remaining stacks of units that died while the buff is active.

Buff Linger Duration: 8

21

60/65/70/75

For Nevermore, there's as much delight in the harvest as there is in the feast.

• Details
• Status Effects
• Misc.
• Show All

• The ability effects are applied as follows:
  1. Applies the following two buffs at the same time:
     • nevermore_frenzy
       • Reapplying the buff refreshes the duration.
       • TALENT NOTES
         The cast animation time factor talent stacks multiplicatively with other cast time reduction sources.
     • nevermore_feast_of_souls_collection
       • Centered on Nevermore upon cast for the entire duration.
       • Considers the following enemy units valid:
         • Considers clones and the Spirit Bear as heroes, other creep-heroes as creeps.
         • Lane creeps and neutral creeps.
         • Untargetable units.
       • Does not consider the following enemy units valid:
         • The ability can affect the same enemy units once per cast. Hence, units already considered by Feast of Souls are not valid.
         • Fogged units.
         • Hidden units.
         • Illusions
         • Invisible units.
         • Invulnerable units.
       • Grants 3 ( 5) Necromastery stacks per valid enemy hero within the radius in 0.5-second intervals, starting 0.5 seconds upon cast, and requires 2/3/3/4 ( 1/2/2/3) valid enemy units to reach max stacks.
  2. nevermore_feast_of_souls_linger
     • The additional granted Necromastery stacks lingers 8 seconds after casting the ability.
  3. 
     • Reduces the Necromastery stacks corresponding to the current units alive upon losing this debuff in any way.

modifier_nevermore_frenzy

Attack speed increased by x. Movement speed increased by x%.

MODIFIER_PROPERTY_MOVESPEED_BONUS_PERCENTAGE
MODIFIER_PROPERTY_ATTACKSPEED_BONUS_CONSTANT
MODIFIER_PROPERTY_CASTTIME_PERCENTAGE

modifier_nevermore_feast_of_souls_collection

Hidden Modifier

modifier_nevermore_feast_of_souls_linger

Feast of Souls: Lingering souls of Feast of Soul provides bonus damage.

In-game Ability Description

Shadow Fiend gains Bonus Movement and Attack Speed for 8 seconds. For the duration of the effect, every 0.5s he collects souls from 2 enemies in a 600 radius. After the effect is over, he loses the souls whose owners are still alive, retaining the rest for 8s, after which souls that are over the Necromastery max stack count are also lost.

Can only collect souls once from each individual enemy.

F

P

Presence of the Dark Lord

Ability

Passive / Aura

Affects

Enemy Units

Reduces the armor of enemy units within the radius.

Aura Radius: 1200

Armor Reduction: 2.5/4/5.5/7 ( 4/5.5/7/8.5)

Aura Linger Duration: 0.5

Does not affect buildings.

Even being near Nevermore eats away at one's soul.

• Details
• Status Effects
• Misc.
• Show All

• 
  • All ability effects are provided by a negative aura centered around Nevermore.
  • Affects the following units:
    • Couriers.
  • Does not affect the following units:
    • Buildings
    • Enemy units who have no vision over Nevermore.
    • Hidden units.
    • Invulnerable units.

modifier_nevermore_presence_aura (x)

Hidden Modifier

MODIFIER_EVENT_ON_DEATH

modifier_nevermore_presence

Presence of the Dark Lord: Shadow Fiend's presence reduces your armor by x.

MODIFIER_PROPERTY_PHYSICAL_ARMOR_BONUS

In-game Ability Description

Shadow Fiend's presence reduces the armor of nearby enemies.

R

R

Requiem of Souls

▶️ ▶️ ▶️ ▶️

Ability

No / Passive

Affects

Enemy Units / Self

Damage

Spell / Magical

Gathers his captured souls to release them as lines of demonic energy, units near Nevermore can be damaged by several lines of energy.

Enemy units damaged are feared, and have both its movement speed and magic resistance reduced with a duration based on each line hit.

Cast Animation: 1.67 + 0.9

Max Travel Radius: 1000

Lines Starting Width: 125

Lines End Radius: 300

Damage per Line: 80/120/160

Move Speed Slow: 20%/25%/30%

Magic Resist Reduction: 10%

Debuff Duration per Line: 0.6 ( 0.8)

Max Debuff Duration: 2.15 ( 2.6)

Innate Properties
Creates a damaging line projectile per Necromastery stack.

Nevermore loses a portion of stacks upon death.

Max Lines: 20

Min Degree per Line: 18°

Innate Properties
Passively casts Requiem of Souls upon Nevermore's death, regardless of its cooldown.

Cast Animation: 0 + 0

Proc Chance on Death: 100%

Aghanim's Scepter Upgrade
The souls returns back to Nevermore once expanding to its max travel radius, damages all affected enemy units again, and heals its master in the process.

Reduces cooldown.

Self-Heal per Return Line: ( 80/120/160)

120/110/100 ( 90/80/70)

150/175/200

The captured souls of those past slain are released to ravage their former allies.

• Details
• Interactions
• Status Effects
• Misc.
• Show All

• The ability has four main components:
  • 
    • Grants phase movement during the 1.67-second cast point duration.
  • 
    • Creates 1 damage line per current Necromastery stacks, the degree per line is defined as:
      • EXPR
        θ = 360° / NecromasteryStack , MIN θ = 18°
    • The first created Line OP is always a straight line with a 180°-angle, the line starts from Nevermore's current position, point , expands outward to the game's East, regardless of Nevermore's facing angle, and toward point .
      • Can affect enemy units at max 1300-distance away with the travel distance and end radius.
    • The area of every single damage line is cone-shaped, spaced evenly with the other lines adapting according to θ.
  • 
    • All negative ability components can affect the same enemy units once per cast, once per expanding, once per contracting.
    • The ability effects are applied as follows per affected enemy unit per line impact:
      1. The ability dispels the following debuffs, if present or applicable:
         • nevermore_requiem_fear
         • nevermore_requiem_slow
         • Hence, reapplying either debuff refreshes its duration and updates its ability values.
           • TALENT NOTES
             Learning the debuff duration increase talent does not update the current applied instances, but updates the later applied instances.
      2. The magical spell damage.
         • Hence, all lines may damage the affected enemy unit(s) when Nevermore is on the same coordinates as the affected enemy unit(s).
      3. Applies two debuffs with the following ability effects:
         • nevermore_requiem_fear
           • Cannot act.
           • Caster-fear
           • Disarm
           • Silence
           • Mute
         • nevermore_requiem_slow
           • The magic resistance reduction.
             • Stacks multiplicatively with other magic resistance sources.
           • The movement speed slow.
         • The debuff duration is defined as:
           • EXPR
             FearDuration = (0.6 + 0.2) × f(EnemyHero) , MAX = (2.15 + 0.45)
      4. 
         • SCEPTER NOTES
           
           • The lines now contracts from to point , starting out from the max radius and becomes narrower, at the same speed toward Nevermore's current coordinates, and not to the original ability cast location.
           • 
             • Heals Nevermore for the full value per enemy hero affected by the spell damage component, regardless of the damage instance value. This is defined as:
               • EXPR
                 80/120/160 × f(EnemyHero)
               • This ability component considers clones and illusions as heroes, creep-heroes as creeps.
           • 
             • Once the line contracts, the travel path is fixed and does not follow Nevermore.
  • 
    • The passive cast upon death does not proc with reincarnation sources, and has the following ability activation sequence:
      1. Applies the Necromastery stacks lost on death factor.
      2. 
         • Has an instant cast time.
         • Works independently of Requiem of Soul's cooldown, and does not cost mana.
         • Does not proc on-cast effects.
         • Explicitly does not apply the following ability components:
           • nevermore_requiem_fear
           • The contracting lines ability upgrade.

Interactions: Spell Steal

Has the DOTA_ABILITY_BEHAVIOR_NORMAL_WHEN_STOLEN.
This ability's cast point is not modified when acquired.

modifier_nevermore_requiem_invis_break

Hidden Modifier

MODIFIER_STATE_NO_UNIT_COLLISION

modifier_nevermore_requiem_thinker

On Hidden Entity

modifier_nevermore_requiem_fear

Requiem of Souls: Feared.

MODIFIER_STATE_DISARMED
MODIFIER_STATE_SILENCED
MODIFIER_STATE_MUTED
MODIFIER_STATE_COMMAND_RESTRICTED
MODIFIER_STATE_FEARED

modifier_nevermore_requiem_slow

Requiem of Souls: Movement speed reduced by x%.

MODIFIER_PROPERTY_MOVESPEED_BONUS_PERCENTAGE
MODIFIER_PROPERTY_MAGICAL_RESISTANCE_BONUS

In-game Ability Description

Shadow Fiend gathers up to 20 of his captured souls to release them as lines of demonic energy. Units near Shadow Fiend when the souls are released can be damaged by several lines of energy. Any unit damaged by Requiem of Souls will be feared and have its movement speed and magic resistance reduced for 0.6 seconds for each line hit up to a maximum of 2.15. Lines of energy are created for every soul captured through Necromastery.

Requiem of Souls is automatically cast whenever Shadow Fiend dies, regardless of its cooldown.

• 
  • Has 700- speed.
  • Each line takes 1.43-seconds to expand and to contract.
  • Deals a max 1600/2400/3200 magical spell damage (before reductions) when the affected enemy unit(s) are within the same coordinates as Nevermore.

• 
  • Affected enemy heroes now have 17.5% + 0.11% × ΣInt magic resistance.

• COSMETIC
  Has a 1.2- cast backswing with the Demon Eater equipped.

Date	Tier		Tournament	Picks		Score			vs. Picks	Patch
October 31, 2026 - 13:30 EET	Qualifier		UESF Stage 5 OQ2				1 : 0			7.41f	+ Details
October 30, 2026 - 20:35 EET	Tier 4		FinFun Dota Cup - Playoffs				0 : 1			7.41f	+ Details
October 30, 2026 - 19:10 CET	Tier 3		EPC Season 3 - October 30				0 : 1			7.41f	+ Details
October 25, 2026 - 23:05 EEST	Tier 4		FinFun Dota Cup - Round 9				1 : 0			7.41f	+ Details
October 25, 2026 - 20:05 EEST	Tier 4		FinFun Dota Cup - Round 7				0 : 1			7.41f	+ Details

Relics track a hero's actions and statistics, and display in-game notifications when a milestone is reached. They are only available to Dota Plus subscribers.

Shadow Fiend's Relics	Voice Lines
Medium Shadowraze Kills Long Shadowraze Kills 3 Shadowraze combo 5 hero Requiem of Souls Short Shadowraze Kills Teleports leading to Kills Eul's Scepter of Divinity leading to Kills Damage from Invisibility Kills during Black King Bar Blink leading to Kills Triple Kills Mega Kill Streaks Kill Assists Kills	Bronze	▶️ Ah ha ha ha ha ha! ▶️ Well bless your soul.
	Silver	▶️ Outplayed. ▶️ A beautiful soul for my collection.
	Gold	▶️ Fear my presence. ▶️ I'll take it.
	Platinum	▶️ You can never hide!
	Master	▶️ Ozh icha gluth izh sol.
	Grandmaster	▶️ It's true, I have the soul of a poet. I just can't remember where I put it.

"Template:Navbox/old" is deprecated! Please use Template:NavBox instead.

• The name "Nevermore" likely refers to the poem "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe. This is also referenced in his bio.
• Shadow Fiend's rare response ▶️ "Never say Nevermore..." is in reference to the James Bond movie "Never say never again".
• Apart for popular demand by fans, Shadow Fiend's model rework may have also been done to adhere to certain countries' censorship laws, namely the Chinese client.

• Warcraft 3 similarities:
  • Shadow Fiend uses the model of the Firelord, a neutral ranged hero.
  • The model's tint was set to 0|0|0, turning it completely black, apart from the a few particle effects that ignored the tint.
  • Since particle effects were not affected by the tint, the fire particles on his head and base were still colored.
    • This appearance was likely the inspiration for the Demon Eater Arcana.
  • Shadow Fiend's animation for Requiem of Souls is inspired by the channel animation of the Firelord.
  • Shadow Fiend has a 1/11 chance to spawn in with the name "YaphetS", as tribute to the professional DotA player.

• 

  Shadow Fiend cartoon art
• 

  Concept art
• 

  Concept art
• 

  Concept art
• 

  Concept art
• 

  Concept art
• 

  Concept art
• 

  Concept art
• 

  New model
• 

  Old model (before September 25, 2014 Patch)
• 

  Old Low Violence model
• 

  Ability icon progress
• 

  Hero icon progress
• 

  Bone Harvest sprite - alive
• 

  Bone Harvest sprite - dead
• 

  Monster Hunter Hero Atlas Illustration