History Characters / Dota2IntelligenceNToZ

* {{Irony}}: Silencer's greatest counter is that, as an Intelligence caster, he is also rendered helpless by silences, which will prevent him from casting his spells and disable the bonus damage from ''Glaives of Wisdom''.

* LevelDrain: ''Glaives of Wisdom'' temporarily drains the target's Intelligence with each hit. If an enemy is killed by him or dies near him, then Silencer ''permanently'' steals 2 Intelligence points from them (4 with Aghanim's Shard).

* WeaksauceWeakness: ''Sprout'' can be countered by the Quelling Blade, which can be bought right at the start of the game for a piddly 100 gold (and is already a popular purchase for anyone trying to farm or last-hit creeps in lane while being a trivial purchase for even support heroes), as well as the ubiquitous Tangos. Players who are prepared for the spell and quick on the keyboard will barely be slowed down by it at all. However, the only item Quelling Blade builds into is the Battle Fury, which is useless on ranged heroes and only a few melee heroes can really make use of it, meaning that as the game goes on, and Quelling Blade has to be sold to make room for better items, the spell becomes more useful (support heroes do often hold onto theirs due to not usually being strapped for item slots). Force Staff, a common item for supports (and which can be used on other players) also easily counters the spell. And anyone with the range to hit back from inside the trees, like Sniper or Drow Ranger, makes the trees mostly pointless, at least if Nature's Prophet is by himself.

* HealingFactor: With at least one point in ''Death Pulse'' and ''Heartstopper Aura'', Necrophos gets absurd amounts of HP and mana regeneration, making him one of the few Heroes in the game who will rarely/never have to go back to base except to buy items. ''Ghost Shroud'' also amplifies all of Necrophos's regeneration while active, and ''Reaper's Scythe'' permanently boosts his regeneration if it nets a kill. As such, a high-level Necrophos can often tank his way through teamfights by just healing himself faster than the enemy can kill him. His Aghanim's Scepter actually ''weaponizes'' his Healing Factor, boosting ''Heartstopper Aura'''s damage by 60% of his health regen; this becomes especially fun with a lot of ''Reaper's Scythe'' stacks and/or a Heart of Tarrasque.

* HumanResources: ''Heartstopper Aura'' gives Necrophos HP and mana regeneration every time he kills anything (including denying). Each individual amount isn't that much, but considering that he only has two active abilities, and that you'll be getting kills each time you last-hit a creep (and you'll be doing this dozens of times in any given match), this means that it's very hard for him to run out of mana even if he spams ''Death Pulse''.

* KillSteal: If an enemy hero dies when affected by ''Reaper's Scythe'', Necrophos will be credited with the kill and benefit from the regeneration from ''Heartstopper Aura'', no matter who actually finished off the target.

** ''Reaper's Scythe'', as an inversion of PercentDamageAttack, has the ability to instantly kill any enemy once they fall below a certain health threshold, making it an unspammable but more powerful version of Axe's ''Culling Blade'' (though without the ability to pierce through Death Prevention effects), which can only cull a target below a flat amount of HP. And upon killing an enemy with ''Reaper's Scythe'', Necrophos permanently gains bonus HP and mana regeneration, in addition to the ''Heartstopper Aura'' proc.

* MagikarpPower: Necrophos is extremely weak early game: ''Death Pulse'' costs a lot of mana and needs many levels to be effective, and ''Heartstopper Aura'' is his only useful skill as its damage is equally effective at all stages of the game. However, late game, with enough levels and equipment, Necrophos can become extremely tanky with constant ''Death Pulse'' spamming and ''Heartstopper Aura'' giving him absurd regeneration, and with ''Death Pulse'' and ''Heartstopper Aura'' he is a walking hazard to the enemy team as long as he lives, before he uses ''Reaper's Scythe'' to finish them off, putting them at a huge disadvantage. Ironically these traits means that Necrophos is a bad support, and the fact that he is a carry has become a running joke for the player base, since pubs tend to think that Necrophos is a support.

* RegeneratingMana: The passive component of ''Heartstopper Aura'' regenerates mana for every creep kill you get with it. Killing a hero regenerates ten times that amount, more than paying back however much mana you spent casting ''Reaper's Scythe''.

* {{Sadist}}: The implication of ''Heartstopper Aura'' granting bonus regeneration after killing a unit is that Necrophos loves killing so much, the pleasure he gains from it actually heals him. In previous versions, this ability was actually a separate ability which was outright named ''Sadist''.

* SpamAttack: ''Death Pulse'''s cooldown is extremely short, only 5 seconds when maxed, and combined with his ''Heartstopper Aura'', which returns mana for each unit killed, Necrophos can afford to spam it with ease during a fight once he has a sufficiently large mana pool. It's also the reason why Necrophos is a carry, as he needs mana items so he can spam ''Death Pulse'' without running dry for ''Reaper's Scythe'', HP items so he could survive for longer and throw more ''Death Pulse''s (good teams will focus him first and he'll melt easily without items), and last hits to fuel ''Heartstopper Aura''.

* WhyWontYouDie: A combination of ''Death Pulse'', ''Ghost Shroud'' and active healing items like Mekansm can make Necrophos extremely hard to kill unless he's disabled and focused down. Additionally, the bonus regeneration from ''Heartstopper Aura'' is multiplied by ten for every hero that Necrophos kills. This allows Necrophos to regenerate large amounts of HP in the middle of a teamfight, making him hard to bring down, especially if he then uses ''Ghost Shroud'' to increase the regen further and protect himself from physical damage.

* TooSpicyForYogSothoth: Enemies with higher mana than Harbinger are unaffected by ''Sanity's Eclipse'', but his high Intelligence and ''Astral Imprisonment'' makes this a tall order.

* LifeDrain: Literally the name of his ultimate, which rapidly deals constant heavy damage to an enemy while channeling it, and restores that amount to Pugna. He can also perform a reverse version on allies to heal them at [[CastFromHitPoints the cost of his own health]]. Aghanim's Shard allows him to cast it onto his Nether Ward, which makes it split onto every enemy in range.

* LifeDrain: ''Shadow Strike'' heals Queen of Pain every time it deals damage.

** Since ''Arcane Supremacy'' amplifies spell damage and cast range, and ''Spell Steal'' amplifies debuff duration, [[AnythingYouCanDoICanDoBetter Rubick's stolen spells can be cast from farther, deal more damage and inflict debuffs that last longer than when used by the original owner]]. He also uses his default casting animation when casting a spell that does not require channelling or an extended preparation time. Abilities stolen from heroes with a long cast point (like Jakiro's ''Ice Path'' or Leshrac's ''Split Earth'') can thus all be cast within 0.1 seconds, making them superior on Rubick than on their owner. He also has two talents that improve stolen spells (-25% cooldown at level 15 and +40% damage at level 25, the latter of which is superior to any other hero's spell amplification talents).

* DamageIncreasingDebuff: ''Disseminate'' causes enemies standing near the target, including the target itself (if an enemy), to take a percentage of all damage taken by the target.

* EvilLaugh: The sound effect for ''Last Word'' is a creepy, distorted version of Silencer's laugh.

* LevelDrain: ''Glaives of Wisdom'' temporarily drains the target's Intelligence with each hit. If an enemy dies under this effect, then Silencer ''permanently'' steals 2 Intelligence points from them (4 with Aghanim's Shard).

* MechanicallyUnusualClass: Despite his name, Silencer's only direct-targeted ability that actually applies a silence debuff to his foes upon casting is is ultimate, which has an extremely long cooldown (130 seconds at all levels, comparable to other huge teamfight ultis like ''Black Hole'', ''Ravage'' and ''Guardian Angel''). Instead, he "silences" his foes through other means. By permanently stealing their Intelligence through kills and assists, he reduces the size of their mana pools, making them much less able to cast spells over an extended period of time. By debuffing them with ''Arcane Curse'', he forces them to not use spells so that they stop losing HP. And by casting ''Last Word'' on them, he either forces them to expend mana to reduce the duration of the slow or keep the mana but risk being caught by an enemy team because of their slow. In effect, Silencer eliminates his opponents' ability to cast spells by reducing the size of their mana pool and then draining it dry so that they have no mana to cast spells even if they haven't been afflicted by the silence debuff.
* MindRape: ''Glaives of Wisdom'' steal the opponent's Intelligence on hit, and ''Last Word'' deals damage based on the difference between their Intelligence and Silencer's own, so presumably there's some of this going on.

* MutualDisadvantage:
** Against enemies who rely on passive instead of active abilities, like Sniper or Drow Ranger, Silencer's abilities to, well, silence lose much of their effectiveness. On the other hand, these characters will instead take further damage from ''Curse of the Silent'' (and ''Global Silence'', if upgraded with Aghanim's Scepter). ''Last Word'' also slowed down enemies which can catch the opponent off guard if an enemy team catches them. However, [[{{Nerf}} Silencer lost some of his effectiveness against them after his rework]], as ''Arcane Curse'' isn't too disruptive against enemies that don't cast spells and ''Last Word'' no longer disarms or slows.
** While ''Global Silence'' does pierce debuff immunity, the debuff itself is dispellable. As such, when Silencer goes up against enemies with Black King Bar, he has to not be ''too'' hasty in using his ultimate if he wants to guarantee the silence on them, and vice versa for the opponent if they don't want to get silenced.
* MutualKill: The only situation in which the Silencer does not benefit from a kill. Usually when he gets a kill, he steals 2 Intelligence from his victim. However, if Silencer is dead by the time his killing blow lands, the Intelligence steal does not take effect. In the original ''[=DotA=]'', the stolen Intelligence was released from the victim as a projectile and only granted to Silencer when it reached him; if he died before the projectile reached him, he would not gain Intelligence.

* SadisticChoice
** ''Last Word'' forces the target to choose between casting an ability and losing mana, and then getting damaged and silenced (rendering their spells useless in a teamfight for the duration of the silence, and weakening them later on due to not having the mana to cast what they need), or to save the mana by not casting a spell, and still take the damage and silence anyways.
** ''Arcane Curse'' forces the enemy to choose between not casting a spell and waiting for the debuff to end (thus making them less useful if a teamfight actually starts), or use spells and lose even more HP.
* StatusEffects: Specializes in silencing enemies; his third ability, ''Last Word'', also slow the target during the duration of the spell. ''Global Silence'' silences every unit on the map, and with Aghanim's Shard, ''Glaives of Wisdom'' periodically silences the target.

* YouAreAlreadyDead: Often the result if Silencer casts ''Last Word'' on a fleeing foe with low HP. As they will take the damage no matter what (unless they activate spell immunity/invulnerability or have it applied to them), it is not uncommon for the enemy to squirm for 5 seconds prior to dying to the damage.

* SpamAttack: ''Arcane Bolt'' has very low cooldown (5 seconds at level 1, and two seconds at max level), negligible mana cost, and scales with Intelligence, leading to it being used as an overglorified autoattack. His Aghanim's Scepter upgrade adds a whole new level of this: each time he casts a spell, a second enemy near the target is hit by that same spell, allowing him to spam out a ridiculous volume of ''Arcane Bolts'', silence multiple enemies, and drop two ''Mystic Flares'' at a time. This also synergises with ''Shield of the Scion'' (his Aghanim's Shard ability), which provides him armor and intelligence every time he casts a spell.
* SquishyWizard: Skywrath Mage's strength gain is very low and he has the second lowest agility growth in the game (tied with Undying and only higher than Tiny), making him extremely squishy without the armor bonus from ''Shield of the Scion''.
* UnluckyChildhoodFriend: Friend to Shendelzare, and has a crush on her. Too bad she became Vengeful Spirit.

* TheArtifact: The cosmetic item Mecha Boots of Travel Mk III gives Tinker a unique teleport animation and icon for the actual Boots of Travel item, which harks back to when ''Keen Conveyance'' did not exist (and Boots of Travel was ''the'' item to rush on Tinker in every game). While the animation was repurposed for ''Keen Conveyance'', the icon could now only be seen if a Tinker player didn't read the patch notes. This also happened to the Rollermawster cosmetic, which applies a custom model to ''March of the Machines'', an ability that was eventually removed and replaced by ''Warp Flare''.

* CooldownManipulation: ''Rearm'' resets all cooldowns on Tinker's skills and items, allowing him to constantly cast his spells, as long as he has the mana to support it and is not interrupted when casting ''Rearm''.

* ItemAmplifier: ''Rearm'' can reset the cooldowns of item active abilities as well as skills, and is what makes Tinker such a unique and versatile hero, allowing him to jump around the map with Blink Dagger, constantly bombard an enemy with Dagon, or keep them permanently helpless with Scythe of Vyse.

* MacrossMissileMassacre: A level 15 talent increases the missile count of ''Heat-Seeking Missile'' to 3, and thanks to ''Rearm'', Tinker can cast it constantly.

* SpamAttack: With ''Rearm'', Tinker can spam any spell and item ability as long as he has mana, unlike other nukers who can throw their most powerful spells only once or twice per teamfight without Refresher Orb or Refresher Shard.

* SuperPersistentMissile: There is no way to stop his ''Heat-Seeking Missiles'' unless you become spell immune while they are en route.
--> '''Tinker:''' ''(killing with missile)'' Ooh... they never miss!

* TeleportSpam: ''Rearm'' allows Tinker to constantly teleport short distances (when combined with Blink Dagger) and around the map (with ''Keen Conveyance'') with no cooldown.

* YouShallNotPass: ''Heat-Seeking Missile'' (and ''Laser'' as well, after Tinker gets Aghanim's Scepter) spam makes it very difficult to push a tower defended by a Tinker, as they provide a near-constant stream of damage that's only limited by Tinker's mana pool, which he can go back and refill in a few seconds anyway.

* ActionBomb: The Minor Imps summoned by ''Fatal Bonds'' and Aghanim's Shard-upgraded ''Upheaval'' attack by running at enemies and exploding to deal damage in an area (they do have a normal attack, but it's only used against buildings when there are no other targets nearby). They also explode when they die or expire.

* MiniMook: The Minor Imps spawned by Aghanim's Shard-upgraded ''Upheaval'' use the same character model as Warlock's Golem, but are smaller and weaker.

* DeathOfAThousandCuts: ''Arc Lightning'' does relatively little damage, even at level 4. However, it has a very low cooldown, and fairly low mana cost, which means that it can be cast often enough to farm with it if you're careful, and can be almost continuously cast at higher levels, whittling down your enemy's health a bit at a time (especially when paired with ''Lightning Hands'' from his shard). It's percentage-based damage (the only thing left over from the old Static Field ability) makes it continue to deal decent damage, even in the late game.

* PercentDamageAttack: ''Arc Lightning'' and ''Thundergod's Wrath'' zap targets for a percentage of their current and max HP respectively.

Harbinger, the Outworld Destroyer, is one of a great race of beings from beyond this world. He is a sentry for his people, standing alone on the crystalline Outworld at the edge of the reality. For untold eons, he has gazed out beyond existence for any signs of a disturbance that could threaten the universe, his vast mind attuned to foreboding patterns in the cosmos. While the War of the Ancients and its cosmic repercussions has drawn Harbinger to our world, his arrival is a bad sign in of itself, for he comes to warn of an even greater threat on the horizon.\\
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Harbinger the Outworld Destroyer is a powerful ranged carry hero dependent on having a large mana pool to destroy enemies with massive nuke damage. The crux of his kit is ''Arcane Orb'', an autocastable attack modifier which adds bonus pure damage to Harbinger's attacks based on his mana pool. As ''Arcane Orb'' forms the main bulk of his damage output, Outworld Destroyer's item choices focus on augmenting his mana pool and attack speed, leaving him rather fragile. ''Astral Imprisonment'' serves both as a defensive ability and a disable, briefly sealing the target into an extradimensional prison while making it invulnerable and dealing damage to surrounding enemies when it ends. With this ability, Harbinger can push lanes, hold enemies in place, or protect vulnerable allies. To offset his heavy mana demand, Outworld Destroyer has ''Essence Flux'', which gives him a chance to restore a percentage of his mana each time he uses an ability. This ability can also be activated to make Outworld Destroyer's spell damage slow enemies on hit. Harbinger's ultimate ability, ''Sanity's Eclipse'', brings his skillset together with both a passive and active component. The passive component, Charge Counter, gives him charges each time he damages enemy heroes with his basic abilities, with each charge increasing his maximum mana. Once he has enough mana, Harbinger can unleash ''Sanity's Eclipse'' to heavily damage enemy heroes in an area based on the difference between his mana and theirs (including foes trapped in ''Astral Imprisonment''. He may start out relatively weak, but once he builds up his mana pool, the Outworld Destroyer can quickly and easily snuff out his enemy's sanity – followed by their lives.\\
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* DynamicEntry: Due to his ability to globally position with his teleport ability, Nature's Prophet has the uncanny ability to turn the odds in any fight in three seconds, on a cooldown of as low as zero (by comparison, Wisp's ''Relocate'' and Underlord's ''Fiend's Gate'' take at least one or two minutes, respectively, to come off cooldown). He can turn a two-man gank into a three-man gank (augmented by ''Sprout'' and any items he's purchased), or finish off a severely weakened enemy before they can reach the fountain, or solo gank a support who thinks they're safe pushing out lanes since the rest of the other team is visible on the map, or turn a creep wave push completely around by summoning instant reinforcements.

* UnstableEquilibrium: The way Harbinger's abilities work means that he needs to have a high mana count in order to sustain his mana pool. If it drops too low, he won't be able to regenerate mana as efficiently with ''Essence Flux'' as ''Arcane Orb'' costs a large amount of mana itself, and if he runs dry, he'll have to wait for it to regenerate the old fashioned way. This means he'll have to watch his mana pool carefully in the early game. This was remedied by making ''Arcane Orb'' cost a percentage of his current mana, meaning he'll always be able to use it to proc ''Essence Flux''.

* PinataEnemy: The ''Nether Ward'' has a 80 gold bounty at level 4 and is easily destroyed, so Pugna players have to place it in hard-to-spot places to avoid an early detection from the enemy focus fire. Fortunately for Pugna, the ward has a very large area of effect.

* AntiStructure: Because wards have a lower targeting priority for towers than other units, ''Mass Serpent Ward'' can devastate towers during a push. Even if the tower starts focusing on them, it takes a good while for the single-shot tower to put all of them down.

* OverlyLongTongue: The Lash of the Lizard Kin gives Rhasta the tongue of a frog, which is long enough for him to cast ''Shackles'' with it (by enveloping his tongue around the target).