Shadow shamanranged, disabler, initiator, nuker, pusher, support

Intro

Shadow shaman is one of my favorite heroes. He’s very fun to play, and can drastically change team fights and win fights when outnumbered.

This being said, he is a support and should be played as such.

Do not expect to farm gold when sharing a lane, as your carry will need it more than you.

Introduction

Shadow Shaman is a versatile semi-support hero with a claim to be the best disabler in the game. He has a massive bag of tricks up his sleeve, and will be a constant thorn in the side of the opposition.

Rhasta is a great pusher, ganker and team fighter. He also makes a very effective counter to mobile heroes.

Attack Type: Ranged

SUMMONS POWERFUL SERPENT WARDS TO DEAL DAMAGE

Shadow Shaman, Раста – герой с дальним типом атаки и основной характеристикой Интеллект. Раста выполняет роль героя Полной или Частичной Поддержки. Способности персонажа рассчитаны на продолжительную фиксацию врага, а также стремительное разрушение вражеских вышек.

Герой Shadow Shaman и представленный гайд соответствуют среднему уровню сложности.

Always one step ahead of cheated customers, one town ahead of a pursuing patronage, the two trekked across the blighted lands until one day the con-man realized that the little youngling could actually do what he only pretended at. His ward had a gift—a gift that customers valued. And so the youngling Rhasta was thrust before the crowds, and the trade-name Shadow Shaman was born. The two continued from town to town, conjuring for money as Shadow Shaman’s reputation grew. Eventually, the pair’s duplicitous past caught up with them, and they were ambushed by a mob of swindled ex-clients. The con-man was slain, and for the first time, Rhasta used his powers for darkness, massacring the attackers. He buried his beloved master, and now uses his powers to destroy any who would seek to do him harm.

Find constantly updated Shadow Shaman guides from the top performances of the week. Each guide includes item builds, ability builds, timings and more.

Hero Guides are based on TrueSight data from matches with a verified player or Plus subscriber.

~ 5000 MMR

Team Kill %

~ 5500 MMR

Most Popular Ability Build10.99% Build Rate

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Shadow Shaman в Dota 2 (гайд) обладает набором из четырёх активных способностей.

Ether Shock

«Ether Shock» Создаёт поток чистой земной энергии, которая наносит 320 урона на максимальном уровне с дальностью применения в 500. Магический урон наносится по 7 целям одновременно;

Hex

«Hex» Превращает вражеского героя в беспомощное существо. Эффект длится 3,5 секунды;

Shackles

«Shackles» Раста связывает врага в магическую ловушку, которая наносит урон, удерживая героя до 7 секунд (при условии, что прокачен соответствующий талант). Один из самых эффектных навыков Расты;

Mass Serpent Ward

«Mass Serpent Ward» Ультимативная способность героя, позволяющий призвать 10 огненных вардов, которые наносят оппонентам и постройкам фиксированный физический урон. С приобретением Aghanim’s Scepter варды выпускают несколько зарядов, а также получают дополнительную дальность атаки.

When you’re playing against him, is easily the most annoying spell in Rhasta’s armoury. It’s a long, channelled disable that also inflicts a small amount of damage. The channelling means that you cannot cast any other spells, move or attack while you use , but neither can the enemy hero.

This makes it an excellent ganking spell, provided you have support, or can use your Mass Serpent Wards to supply the damage instead.

Later on especially, get used to the timings on both and so that you can chain stun a single target for the maximum possible time (8.25 seconds).

Late Game

I keep my writing about late game very minimal, because Shadow Shaman does not need many items. Unfortunately you shouldn’t get much farm in early game, and you should be in every team fight, which limits the time you can spend in lane farming when you do have the skills to. If you do very well or get farm, I would get multiple items from the late game list. I would start with aghanim’s and pick my items based on my and the enemy team’s composition. Bloodstone is great if I want to be tankier or am scared of dying. Black king bar or linken’s if I am being focused and disabled. Pipe of insight or mekanism if I have a support or someone else on my team dying in every fight. If you have a plethora of money, I would probably use it to increase health, magic resist or armor, or boots of travel to have an easier time getting around and running away.

In most games, I will end up with aghanim’s scepter for the damage I can add to team fights, and tower pushing, and eul’s for the utility and mana regen. By the time that I have both of these, I will likely already be in their base with my team, destroying their barracks. So anything on top of those basics, I view as supplemental and not really needed.

Offensive lane support

temp123

July 12, 2012

Враги

Wards aren’t very smart, and will auto-attack creeps rather than heroes and towers — select and manually target them. Also be aware they provide gold to enemy heroes who destroy them.

Although their damage is improved by , wards are at their most effective in the early-mid game when they can swiftly focus down towers and enemy heroes alike. Ideally, as soon as you reach level 6 you should be trying to push as often as they recharge. Ensure you have plenty of creeps for a push, as wards will be swiftly destroyed by towers if there are no other targets.

Wards can also be used as your 3rd disable — it’s a little bit tricky, but you can trap enemy heroes inside them with careful or creative targeting. For example, you could easily trap a stunned or stationary opponent — or even on an allied who then swaps an enemy in!

Shadow Shaman’s Tips and tricks

Because of his strong disables and powerful nukes, Shadow Shaman benefits greatly from building intelligence items that extend the size of his mana pool and provide mana regeneration, as well as mobility items to allow him to get close enough to use his disables and nukes on enemies.

Shadow Shaman should focus on babysitting his team’s safe lane carry, and setting up kills with his disables when rotating for ganks.

Because Shadow Shaman’s disables are all unit-targeted, they can reliably disable enemies if he gets close enough to them. However, this also means that they can be easily negated by  Linken’s Sphere or even reflected with  Lotus Orb, so be sure to check the enemy’s inventory prior to committing expensive disables.

Shadow Shaman — The King of Disablers?

This is under construction, and I will edit and add more about laning and strategies at a later point

Critiques, criticism or comments welcome. This build is how I have had the most fun and have had the most successful games playing shadow shaman

Shadow Shaman’s Lore

https://youtube.com/watch?v=oEKUDFCabV8%3Ffeature%3Doembed

Other heroes Dota 2 build

Items

Usually as the support class, you’ll need to purchase a courier for the team. If you do not need a courier, buy wards so your mid will have rune vision.

After buy an , this is essential early game as you will need the mana, the bigger mana pool, and can support your team’s mana at the same time.
These should always be on cooldown. You should always be keeping a high mana reserve in case of a fight as you will burn it off very quickly.

After mana boots, I usually go with a in order to be slightly more durable and less squishy. Some people like to get two of these, and that’s fine, I personally like to play more offensively and rush the blink dagger.

— this is crucial to your build. This gives you a viable escape in bad situations or when roaming. Most importantly this will let you land your enemy in a trap serpent ward, as the range is very short.

After blink dagger, the next item will depend on your team composition and how the game is going.

If you need more crowd control, I would do for the whirlwind.

If you team needs more damage, go for increased ward dmg.

If you are having a hard time mid game and need additional hp or mana, I would build

/ / if you are being killed too early in team fights (likely you are being too aggresive and should not be the initiator)

Additionally you can buy a if your team really needs it, but in most games I would prefer to have Eul’s scepter for the cc and my extra mana regen

Тактика

На Shadow Shaman (guide) придерживаются тактики умеренной агрессии. Раста обязуется проявлять должную агрессию на линии. С получением третьего или четвёртого уровня рекомендуется осуществить ганг на центральную линию. Регулярно приобретаются Sentry Ward, Observer Ward.

В сражении Раста обладает основной задачей – зафиксировать в стане вражеского керри или мидера. В процессе пуша вражеских вышек, устанавливаются корректные варды (ультимейт): необходимо, чтобы способность была размещена между вышкой и бараками определённой линии.

Serpent ward trapping

I would recommend people watch youtube video’s on this. Serpent ward casting on the center of a hero will create wards in a square around them

If you have problems doing this, or are new to shadow shaman, polymorph the enemy first. This will slow down their movement and make them smaller, making it easier to figure out where the target middle is.

In most cases, it is essential to blink on to the enemy, so they do not have a chance to run or blink away. Serpent ward is a very small cast distance (550), so you want to hopefully be within 300-400 of them, so you do not miss the range and have your character step then cast, missing the trap.

— As a commenter brought up, more experienced players will fight their way out of serpent ward. This is unavoidable at later levels if you can’t rush to aghanim’s scepter. There are a couple of ways that this can happen in a fight.

Depending on the way the fight happens, I’ll often try to crowd control as much as possible in order to let my team focus one or two at a time and take them down. If I’m able to, I’ll serpent ward a hero, hex another hero, and wait a second for things to play out to see If I should use shackle to potentially save a team mate from death, or to keep one of my currently controlled targets out of the fight longer, or from running away.

In these situations I hope for my team to focus and kill most of their team while I have their supports and/or carries controlled. Often after a few seconds of confusion the hero that was serpent warded will kill a ward and start to run. Most often after a step or two I will shackle and have the wards and whoever is available on my team to finish them off. I prefer to do it this way, as often the hero warded will
1) panic and use their ult wrong
2) panic and stand there briefly, half watching the fight and taking damage at the same time

If in a smaller low level fights, I will often hex then ward them. This lets me be
1) more accurate in ward placement, especially before I have a blink dagger
2) take less or no damage from them while I’m fighting their lane partner
3) ensure they have a delay and take damage before having a chance to break out — almost guaranteeing the kill.

Rhasta is extremely versatile when it comes to items, and it’s impossible to specify items you should always pick. Your choices depend on your role, farm, and the needs of your team. I’m not going to tell you what to buy, just take you through some of the most common items and when they make sense.

Start out by buying wards or a courier, unless you’re playing as a mid. You may want to a consider a , but Rhasta lacks the mobility to compete against proper rune ***** heroes.

Generally you need at least one stats item early game (, or ) to help you with last hitting/denying (as appropriate) and to top up your relatively poor health pool.

Next up, you’ll almost always want for the extra mana and regeneration, plus offering utility to team mates.

If you took the mid role, you’re likely to have more gold, and other support heroes on the team who can pick up the utility items. You should concentrate on increasing your health/mana pool, and looking at items like Black King Bar and to allow you to gank and initiate.

As a support hero, it’s possible that you’re also responsible for warding and so will have a lot less gold to spend on yourself. You should accept this role and concentrate on intelligence/mana, and good utility items as you will not have the health to initiate properly anyway.

One of the few heroes to start with a Hex ability, Rhasta can turn an enemy hero into a harmless chicken for several seconds. Not only is this hilarious, but it reduces their movement speed, armour and stops them attacking or using abilities.

Hex is relatively expensive, mana-wise, and Shackles is a better disable if you want to gank. However, Hex doesn’t require channelling — so is your best spell for escaping.

Whether to skill Hex or Shackles first is discussed further into the guide.

Shadow Shaman’s Skill Order

In teamfights you should look to fire off your abilities as quickly as possible, as the enemy team will attempt to focus you down. You have to consider the situation — it might be vital that you just disable a single enemy hero for as long as possible before they can fire off a big power or smack your allies about. Normally though, you try to make full use of your powers — like so:

Start off by dropping your wards- they are your most powerful spell, and will continue fighting even if you go down. Try to trap an enemy hero inside if possible, but at least aim for the «centre of gravity» of the fight so they continue to inflict damage.

Next, fire off a hex at the most dangerous enemy hero- sometimes this will be their carry, but heroes with big team fight abilities such as , and should also be considered. As are nukers like and .

Next, hit as many heroes as possible with your Ether Shock — simply aim for the closest one in a group. If you have any active ability items, such as a Sheepstick or Eul’s now is the time to use them.

Finally (well, hopefully very soon after!), find a target for your shackles and lock them down. This could be the person you already hex’d, or it might be somebody else depending on how the fight is shaping up. Ether Shock should nearly be available again by the time your Shackle ends, and can be useful for finishing off fleeing survivors.

Having two disables can let you pull off all sorts of creative manoeuvres — you can make some stunning rescues, ganks, and turn around all sorts of situations that seem to be going bad. Shackling tower divers never gets old :).

Itembuild (раскачка)

На Расту рекомендуется приобретать следующие расходные материалы и артефакты:

• Стартовый закуп. Обязательно покупаются артефакты поддержки, а также Tango, Clarity, Healing Salve и Iron Branch;
• Ранняя игра. Раста требует немедленного приобретения Boots of Speed, обладая изначально недостаточной скоростью передвижения. После приобретается Magic Wand;
• Мид гейм. Shadow Shaman не обойдётся без Arcane Boots и по возможности Blink Dagger;
• Лейт гейм (поздняя игра). Покупается Aghanim’s Scepter и Refresher Orb – ультимативный закуп для Расты, который значительно повышает шансы на победу.

Ситуативно могут приобретаться артефакты поддержки, такие как: Medallion of Courage, Glimmer Cape, Force Staff, Mekansm.

Skill Builds

Like your item choices, you should be flexible on your builds for Shadow Shaman — all of his skills are useful, it’s just a question of which you need to level up most urgently.

— you want at least 2 levels in this before using it for harassment, although 1 level can be enough to finish off a fleeing hero. It’s also useful if you want to be able push your lane forward quickly.

— this is primarily a defensive skill in the early stages of the game — it doesn’t inflict damage or disable for as long or as completely as Shackles. But it lets you continue moving and casting, getting you or an ally out of trouble.

— although you can sometimes use this to protect an ally, often it will leave you in a bad position instead. However, it’s an extremely useful ganking tool and makes it easy to setup kills for other players. It also combines better with Wards as the enemy hero can’t move out of range.

Mass Serpent Ward — take this as often as it’s available in almost all situations. Occasionally the mana cost at level 3 can be a problem if you’ve been having a bad game and struggled to get the items you need.

Personally, I usually prefer to level Ether Shock and Shackles early game, with the occasional point in Hex to give the option of an extra disable or non-channelled disable. Every game is different though, and you need to adjust accordingly.

Combo Shadow Shaman

Heroes combo: Shadow Shaman + Juggernaut

Mid or Support?

There’s two roles that Rhasta can do for the team — either as a ganking/pushing mid, or a support hero in either side lane. As a mid, Rhasta is fairly average until he gets his Ultimate, but can easily take out his opponent at that point. He then needs to be very aggressive, looking for ganks and pushing opportunities in other lanes.

As a support hero, Rhasta’s mix of disables and harassment is very effective with a ganking or DPS partner, and adequate for babysitting. His slow speed means that you need to be careful with your positioning though.

Role also plays a big part in item decisions, we’ll cover this later.

Shadow Shaman’s Ability

Creates a cone of ethereal energy that strikes multiple enemy units.

Transforms an enemy unit into a harmless creature, disabling their attacks and abilities.

CHANNELED – Magically binds an enemy unit so that it cannot move or attack, while dealing damage over time.

Summons 10 Serpent Wards to attack enemy units and structures. The Wards are immune to magic.

SHACKLES – SHARD ABILITY UPGRADE

Shackles creates 4 Serpent Wards attacking the target. Increases Shackles cast range by 125. Lasts 7 seconds.

MASS SERPENT WARD – SCEPTER ABILITY UPGRADE

Causes Serpent Wards to have split shot, attacking two units for full damage. Increases attack range of Serpent Wards.

Counter Shadow Shaman

Eul’s Scepter of Divinity Worth a mention at the top of the list, Euls is a relatively cheap item that helps Shaman in a number of ways. It provides good mana regen, as well as a lot of movement speed. Cyclone deserves a special mention, as it makes it incredibly easy to ward trap somebody- just send them up in the air, and place the wards where they will land.
A good choice of Rhasta regardless of role, adding much needed stats and pool points. It offers a good increase to the damage output of Serpent Wards, regardless of their level.

Black King Bar Only for a rich Rhasta, this items makes you immune to most abilities, pretty much guaranteeing you will get all of your abilities off in a team fight. Great item if you are initiating.

Again, only if you have a fair bit of gold and most of the items you need already. Blink gives you a great initiation/ganking option, as well as an escape.

Such a great item on Rhasta, it adds a ton of health, mana and regeneration, meaning you can basically fire off your abilities as much as you want. It also allows you to respawn more quickly, and adds health regeneration for allies in the area where you died.

Scythe of Vyse A farmed up Rhasta is a good sheepstick carrier, adding yet another hex to his arsenal, as well as greatly increased intelligence.

Another expensive item, it allows you use serpent wards more often; or even twice in a single fight. Very nice, but this is a true luxury item for when you already have an Aghanim’s and a Bloodstone.

Друзья

A good Mek carrier, Rhasta benefits from the increased armour and health generation. Just be careful to leave a little mana to use this! Get this if nobody else on the team has.

Pipe of Insight Not really a natural Pipe carrier due to the cost and his low health pool, Rhasta still gains a lot from the magic resistance and should be in a good position to use it in team fights.

A very useful item on Rhasta, giving him a form of short range initiation, escape and way of manipulating the positioning in team fights. Excellent with a on your team, and when heroes such as and are on the opposition. Yes, you can force allies out of a Black Hole!

Drum of Endurance Useful combination of stats, movement and attack speed aura for the team. This allows you to get a bracer early to boost your survivability. Get if it nobody else on the team does.

Urn of Shadows This is more of a gankers tool, and you should avoid it if someone else on your team already has one. You will be frequently involved in ganks and team fights so should get plenty of charges. The strength increase and mana regen boost are nice too.

Veil of Discord Even with his Ether Shock, Rhasta doesn’t really have enough nuking power to make this worthwhile if it’s just for him — but could be well worth it if others on your team do. The stats and armour are nice too.

When not to pick Shadow Shaman

Rhasta suffers a lot against heroes with silencing abilities such as , or Doom Bringer. You really have very little to offer without your spells.

Strong gankers such as and can cause you problems if they catch you out. deserves a special mention as his combination of speed, silence and damage can make your life a misery.

Rhasta is just too slow to make a good long lane solo.

Laning

Laning with shadow shaman is very versatile.

You can choose mid and do well, as your crowd controls and ether shock make you in control of most situations (considering you have wards or are aware of missing enemies) and is AMAZING for rune control. You should buy a bottle fast after the starting gear. The extra levels can pay off and let you get your blink dagger and rush to get aghanim’s scepter. Doing this will let you carry and end pub games fast, or a hard support and tower pusher in more experienced matches.

In choosing other lane’s you should be with a carry, to baby sit them and make sure

1) they never die
2) you gank the enemy and your carry gets the kill
3) your enemy is harassed through ether shock and never gets last hits
4) since your carry is last hitting, you deny everything.

Early ether shock is very mana draining. Use it only when you can get creep kills and harass the enemy hero off the same cast (unless you are going in for a gank). I might throw it off once before level 3 if the other team is very defensive, but I wait until 3 (2 pts into ether shock) until I am actively using it to harass.

In my experience, jungling is not very efficient with shadow shaman

Skill build (раскачка)

Герой Shadow Shaman в Dota 2 (guide) прокачивается с определённой последовательностью.

Пребывая на лёгкой линии, первым делом прокачивается третий скилл, после чего рекомендуется улучшать первую способность. К достижению 6-го уровня навык «Хекс» прокачивается на единичку.

Rhasta’s nuking skill is a great spell for farming, harassment and team fights. As you level it up, the damage and number of targets hit increases. The damage is applied equally to all targets hit.

The main point about using is that it will hit the first target, then branch out to any nearby targets in a wide cone behind it — so target it wisely depending on the level and who you actually want to hit.

Try to get to level 2 before making much use of it, as it massively increases its potential damage for a very minor mana increase.

Shadow ShamanAbility Builds

First Point At Level

Ability Maxed at Level

Talent Trendslast 7 days

Point Choices By Level

Most Popular Builds

Pros / Cons

Lots of crowd control

— polymorph into a critter and enemy can not attack and can be attacked by anyone (including you) for the duration)

— channeled stun to enemy hero. You can not attack through this, but this will cancel enemy casting and some regenerations (salve, clarity, regeneration rune etc)

— When used right will trap your enemy and they will not be able to escape until they kill a ward to get out(wards are magic immune)

— High lane harassment potential and decent mid game farm

High spell based damage potential (from early to mid-late) through ether shock and serpent wards

Focused in almost all team fights

No escape mechanism

Slow movement speed

Very mana dependant (this is a problem in early to mid game)

+ Плюсы героя +

• Наличие способности на продолжительное оглушение: с улучшенным талантом герой способен продержать оппонента в стане более 6 секунд;
• Потенциал к разрушению вышек посредством приобретения Aghanim’s Scepter и Refresher Orb

Герой синергирует с большинством керри героев в Dota

Shadow Shaman’s Pros and Cons

• Works well with almost any hero.
• Strong early game nukes.
• Long duration disables.
• Can splitpush lanes and take towers quickly.

• Low mobility.
• Very mana dependent.
• No escape mechanism.
• More item and level dependent than other supports.

+ Very versatile
+ Great selection of different spells
+ Low cooldown times
+ Massive disabling ability
+ Great pusher
+ Can initiate with the right items

— Somewhat squishy
— Can burn through mana very quickly
— Slow projectile speed
— Lacks damage in late game
— Slow movement speed

Заключение

Shadow Shaman – один из лучших героев класса «Поддержка» в Dota 2. Обладая мощными фиксирующими навыками, Раста может установить потрясающие варды, способные не только разрушить тавера (вышки), но и уничтожить половину вражеской команды.

— Минусы героя —

• Недостаточное количество эффективного здоровья;
• Отсутствие минимального показателя брони;
• Медленная скорость передвижения и поворота.