Counter Heroes : The Lord of Avernus, Omniknight, Tidehunter, Necrolyte

Pick top lane sentinel, bottom lane scourge. Being close to the secret shop cuts a lot of precious travelling time. Lucifer can easily solo, even against two melee heroes. If its one ranged and one melee, he just might have some trouble, especially if they’re nukers, if it’s two ranged, best pick another lane or ask for a ranged partner.

Get devour. Use devour on the ranged creep of the first wave, that should get you a few hits, but after that you can hang out in the back and restore with ring of regeneration while devouring the creep. Try getting a last hit or two, or a deny, those are helpful. When devour’s over, devour another creep. Always try to make ranged creeps a priority for devour, since they have lower HP. Keep this up until lvl 5-6.

Spamming devour must’ve cost you a lot of mana, so you can’t cast neither doom nor lvl?death. During this stage of the game, feel free to use the potions, just be careful not to waste them. Still, at the point where you are around lvl 6, if you have kept devouring constantly and got some last hits, you should have enough money to buy a perseverance, and a mana potion left. Do it, and use the potion.

Now then. If the hero is under 1000 hp, don’t hesitate. Wait until he is in the lvl? death range, cast it on him, then doom. Try to get a few hits just to ensure killing him. Even in the scenario where he doesn’t die, he’s going back to base. Which is a good thing, even wasting your first doom for. Personally, since I hardly care about scores, I don’t pursue hero killing too much at this stage, unless it’s a low hp hero. You can get a lot of gold by farming, so why push it? Besides, sending heroes back to base and forth costs them more in time than actually killing them, up until lvl 6.

Anyway, by now, one way or another, you should have gotten rid of your lane enemies. Farm a little more, careful for gangs since you might be in the half-hp range, DON’T FORGET DEVOUR, prioritizing the ranged creep. If you’ve been doing a good job in harassing the enemy heroes, you might as well take out a tower. Still, always careful for gangs.

By the time you return to base (approx around lvl , you should have at least the gold for boots of speed and one of the battlefury’s other components. i usually have enough gold to complete battlefury, but this guide is following worst case scenarios and is directed towards people who aren’t experts at creeping. Anyway buy whatever you can afford. Now it’s time for the real fun to begin.

MID GAME (LVL 8-16)

This is the funniest part. Farm like hell (get an animal courier btw, it’s hard to get to base anymore), and get your battle fury by lvl 10 at maximum.

You generally want to follow the same pattern as early game. You can amass tremendous gold by farming on an empty lane or lane with one hero-just keep harassing them with lvl? death if they are in the extra damage range. Move in for the kill if you feel certain, however, sending them back to base can also suffice (always, ALWAYS, those things depend on the level of your opponents. I just assume you are playing with others roughly the same skill as you).

Farm, farm, farm. Devour on the ranged creep, then keep hitting the melee creeps, all of them at once with Battle fury. You don’t need your creeps to kill of a wave of enemy creeps. Do it and get Boots of Travel and Heart of Tarrasque. This is easily achievable by level 16, if you follow the farming guidelines.

If you have a stunner ally, call him in for a gang. If the enemy is ranged, that means he’s bolder, so getting the kill is actually easier. Make sure your ally can attack from the sides or from behind, then go forward, if he’s in the range, cast lvl? death, if he isn’t just attack and retreat until he comes a bit forward to get a few ‘free’ hits. Then, your ally stuns, you attack, lvl? death regardless of his level, he tries to escape, doom! dead. If he’s melee, just engage him (with your items and HP you should have no problem taking a few hits), spells and doom. Dead. If you and your ally have good timing, it’s easy to do. Might actually work to cast doom in the beginning, if you’re up against a spellcaster. This way, he will lose a lot of HP without retreating, since you’ll have ‘wasted’ your ulti. If you can pack a bit of damage then, you and your ally can finish him off easily.

Of course, ganging is hardly your only option for killing. You can easily solo almost any enemy, especially intelligence and agility ones. Doom them, hunt them, chase them even behind towers, spam lvl? death on them, and they are bound to die. Strenght ones might actually escape you, though I doubt it. Anyway, going up from behind to surprise an enemy intelligence hero is 95% a free kill. Do it. Often.

Never forget farming though. Also, this is the time to push. Push badly. Use your boots to transport to empty or one-hero lanes, force the hero back (no time to waste doom anymore, lvl? death and a few hits should be enough, your damage should be spanning well over 150 now) or kill him using the patterns I described above, then get towers. If you pick Scorched Earth, which is advisable precisely for the following reason, I’ll go as far as to say that gangs are hardly an issue anymore. If they have stunners/disablers, it just might turn ugly, so be careful. However, if a hero like riki attempts to chase you, turn back and fight. Doom the most dangerous one, or the one with the lowest health, spam your lvl? death, attack viciously (hell, battle fury helps even in this situation), and you can survive a gang. If you don’t feel confident, just cast Scorched Earth and outrun them. With your boots, it should be no issue.

LATE GAME (LVL 16-25)

95%, there will be no late game. If you don’t drag it, you’ll have so many kills and have pushed so badly that you should have won by now. However, if the enemy is persistent, your allies beginners (excuse me, but I don’t really enjoy the term ‘noob’), or you were holding back, it just might drag on a bit more.

Like before, farming paradise. Just farm. Creeps will die in seconds. Buy Aghanim’s by level 20, then go for Radiance, or the other way around, however you feel like. Radiance offers more damage and more farm (you won’t need more farming capabilities though), while Aghanim’s improves doom. It all depends on your observations-if you have needed to rely on doom to take kills, go for Aghanim’s, if doom is just a luxury/silencer (which usually is true for me), go for Radiance. Also, against invisible/illusion-conjuring heroes, Radiance is quite useful, though battle fury partly replaces its role.

For killing, just follow the same pattern as in mid-game, with the difference that you can easily solo an enemy now, even a strenght one. You are also capable of killing two intelligence or agility heroes at once, depending on the situation.

In most cases, I don’t care about the enemy heroes right now. I just keep pushing, it’s way faster. You can either abandon your allies and go for a solo push. Your enemies will gang them. Be they successful or not, you’ll still have pushed a lot (into their base, unless you like to drag out ridiculously, or you’re up against skilled enemies with heavy pushers). Or, you can gather the entire team and go for the kill (of the Throne/Tree obviously).

In short, the game doesn’t have to drag that long. It should have ended by lvl 16-18. If you drag it, you might as well go for Roshan, though Lucifer is not a Roshan-killer, you can tank a lot of damage for your allies to kill him. Anyway… if you desperately, sadistically enjoy dragging, make a refresher orb. You should make the whole thing in like 2 minutes with your farming skills. Two dooms, whoa. Decapacitate spellcasting from half of the enemy team.