UNDER CONSTRUCTION
I welcome any and all comments during and after publishing! This probably won't be published for maybe a month, so that I can make sure I do it right, though.




Table of Contents

I. Quick Play Guide
II. Introduction
III. The Philosophy
IV. Skills Description
V. Role Discussion
VI. Skill Builds
VII. The Toolbox
VIII. Advanced Tactics
IX. Replays
X. Thanks
XI. Final Words
XII. Changelog


I. Quickplay Guide




II. Introduction

Hey guys! This is W0LF0S coming at you guys with a DotA Guide once again! This time, I'm going to be covering Krobelus, Death Prophet. This gal is one of my old favorites, and I have to say one of my fallbacks when I'm just looking to have some fun. I'm glad to have you guys here reading another of my guides, and I hope you enjoy this one as much as my others!

So, who is Krobelus? I would say that she is Queen AoE. Others would say she is Queen Push. Other could say she is Queen Tank. No matter what title you give her, she will still require certain things of you. In order to play this hero at a high level, you must:
-Be an effective last hitter. I can never stress this skill enough. It is the single most important fundamental skill to master for the game of DotA.
-Have map awareness. If you drive, you know that you need to check your mirrors every now and again to check who's around you. Same idea here with your minimap.
-Be aggressive. Krobelus is not for the faint of heart to play. She is quite literally pure offense, much like Nevermore.
-Adapt to the game. No two games are the same. That's one of the reasons we all love this game so much! You need to be aware of your options and when to utilize them.
-React to your opponents. You have to know how to react to your opponents, and you must act. Indecision is just as deadly as not knowing what to do.

With that being said, you can probably guess that I am not writing this guide with new players in mind. If you are very new to this game, I highly recommend reading the Learn the Game section of this website to get the hang of the game and learn the basics. I would also recommend reading Welcome to DotA, You Suck by my buddy, Purge. Both contain a good introduction to the game.

I'm sure some of you are wondering who I am, so let me tell you a little bit about me. My name is W0LF0S, Wolfos, or DC.W0LF0S depending on where you find me, but two things remain the same about me: 1. I love DotA; 2. I have a terrible case of tunnel vision. I tend to focus on one thing to the exclusion of others with a relentless kind of passion. Surprisingly, I've stuck on DotA as my favorite game for going close to 5 years now. It's pretty amazing what I've been able to do in, with, and for DotA. I've gotten my share of super ridiculous kills; I've been able to build up and be a part of a DotA team; I've been able to produce some quality guides and commentaries for this awesome and rabid community. Basically, I've been around the block a few times, and I hope that I can share some of what I know with you guys.

Now, without any further ado, let's move on the rest of the guide!


III. The Philosophy

Awhile back, I had an interesting question come up. "Why don't you post just one skill build and one item build in your guide?" The ensuing discussion lead to the formation of my Gaming Philosophy or the breakdown of thoughts regarding gaming and forming strategies around those games. This is the original Philosophy, and it has remained unchanged since last year. Enjoy!

My gaming philosophy is that the best players are those who do the following:

1. Formulate an initial plan.
2. Decipher the enemy plan.
3. Immediately throw out their plan and react to counter the enemy's plan.

But how do I make this accessible to you, the reader? It seems totally obvious to me how this works, but that doesn't mean it's obvious to you. Hence why I am taking the time to attempt to convey the thoughts behind the guide.

Endless adaptability. Know your options. Recognize synergy. Pressure a game's flow into your favor. Seize every opportunity. Create fear in your opponents. Strike without mercy. Never surrender. Become chaos.

These are the core components of my thinking when going into a game. I intend to make my enemies fear me and my teammates. I intend to be chaos unleashed. And while these things seem to be weighty thoughts, they are truly accessible by anyone.

Here's how I make this accessible. I don't bog you down with a list of things to accomplish and a timetable to get things done. That's your job as a player. Asking me, the writer, to do that for you is essentially asking me to think for you. Laying down your mind is the absolute worst thing you can do to yourself as a player.

My part and my intention in writing this guide is to inform you of the best options and to provide insight into when these options are used. Once you have the best options, it becomes your responsibility to analyze the game, it's flow, and it's players' tendencies and to then react in an appropriate manner. That manner being your best to crush your opponents without letting up. It becomes your job to cause them as much chaos as you are possibly capable of mustering.

Just as an example for you. Let's say that I lay out a pretty timetable going for my preferred items in a standard game, and leave it at that. I've handicapped you. I've not given you the tools I used to construct the timetable. What happens when it's not a normal game, and you need to figure out how to counter a 5 man push mid at minute zero? I fully intend for you to be able to pluck apart this guide and be able to come up with a solution to just such a problem.

In conclusion, the ability to think actively about the situation is what will define you as a player. Set this aside and you leave things to chance. I try my damn hardest to leave nothing that I have in my ability to control and affect to fate. To do so is the height of irresponsibility.


IV. Skills Description

This section is dedicated to outlining the mechanics and showcasing the power of Krobelus's abilities. The particulars of how/when/where/why to use these will be covered in Advanced Tactics.

Carrion Swarm

Ability: Active
Type: Point
Effect: 100/175/225/300 damage to each enemy in a Cone AoE.
Mana: 105/120/140/165
Cooldown: 8

Right off the bat is your bread and butter skill. This is how you flash farm, this is how you control the lane, this how you kill people. The trickiest part of this skill is the Cone AoE of 110 [Source], 300 [Final], 700 [Travel] combined with the casting range of 600. It's a little confusing, but it is very easily abused once you understand the mechanics.

Silence

Ability: Active
Type: Area
Effect: Silence enemies for 3/4/5/6 seconds in a 200/275/350/350 AoE.
Mana: 80
Cooldown: 15

The most self explanatory skill in DotA. Silence simply prevents any hero caught in the AoE from using any active spells that they have. It does not prevent them from using items, passives, or triggered abilities like Force Staff, Vampiric Aura, or Borrowed Time. This spell has a ridiculous casting range of 900. Most spells have a casting range of merely 600.

Witchcraft

Ability: Passive
Type: N/A
Effect: Improves your other abilities and increases your movement speed.
Mana: N/A
Cooldown: N/A

Less than a handful of forced synergy skills exist Dota; this is one of them. This will lower the cooldown of Carrion Swarm and Silence by 1/2/3/4 seconds and also lowers their mana cost by 10/15/20/25. It improves your MS by 4/8/12/16%. And finally, it increases the number of spirits that Exorcism will summon by 3/4/5/6. This ability exists simply to make you better, faster, stronger.

Exorcism

Ability: Active
Type: Instant
Effect: Summon a horde of 4/10/18 spirits to attack your enemy within 700 AoE.
Mana: 200/300/400
Cooldown: 100 seconds.

One of the coolest abilities to activate in my opinion. This will summon a horde of spirits that do 43-48 Hero type damage each to whatever you target, whether that is a hero, creeps, or buildings. This ability is what lends Krobelus so well to pushing. And lets not forget that after the horde has had their fun for 30 seconds, they will heal Krobelus for 25% of the total damage that they inflict. Yowzah!


V. Role Discussion

Now before we get too funky with the chicken, let's examine exactly how Krobelus measures up all on her own. Fair warning, reading ahead!

Stats wise, she's pretty balanced. She has a good starting strength of 19 with a good gain of 2.2. Her agility starts low at 14 and stays low with a gain of 1.4. Her intelligence starts well at 20 and takes off with a gain of 3. To push this in perspective, most heroes have base stats that add up to about 60 with gains that add up to about 6.1; Krobelus has total base stats that add up to 53 with a gain that totals at 6.6. So, she has a low start with a top notch gain.

What about her other characteristics? For movement speed, she has a base of 285; that's pretty pathetic. Her starting armor is 1.96; also really pathetic. Her base attack damage is 44-56; this lower than the average but not pathetic. Her BAT is 1.7; that's normal. Her missile speed is 1000; that's par for the course. Her attack range is 600; that's normal and also the highest starting range there is in Dota. Based off this, you're probably thinking, "This hero sounds pretty weak. Why am I thinking about playing her again?" Don't worry; they had to give her a weakness somewhere.

So what does all this number nonsense mean? Basically, Krobelus has an average amount of HP, low armor, and high mana. When you put that together with her skill set, you start to see the design: DPS/Tank. Whoa there, did I say tank?

Yes, I did. And to be honest, many people don't truly understand the word tank, because its meaning changes based on what game your playing. In World of Warcraft, the tank is the main aggressor that grabs and keeps hold of the attention of monsters and bosses. In League of Legends, it's the champion with a Taunt that forces players to attack him. And in other games, it holds other similar meanings. So, what is a tank in Dota? Well, let's look at some of the defining characteristics of a tank.

1. Effective Health Points. Lots of them.
2. Grabs and holds the attention of enemies.
3. Disrupts and causes chaos amongst your enemies if left alone.
4. Capability to deal large amounts of area damage.
5. Punishes enemies for targeting the tank.
6. Some ability that ruins the enemy's gameplan.
7. Able to target multiple enemies at once.

To summarize, a tank is a hero that demands attention. This can be through a flashy and deadly ability. Through can be through his ability to spam a particularly nasty ability. A tank also disrupts an enemy's gameplan somehow; this is usually some form of AoE disable. A tank also is also potentially able to harm an entire team at once.

Now, which of those does Krobelus fill out on her own? She definitely fills out numbers 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7. She modestly handles number 1, and she doesn't even address number 5. And to be honest, most tanks will only fill out 4 of these characteristics with just their natural abilities. The fact that Krobleus can do 5 is a big clue as to what she can do.

Let's theory craft for a quick minute. Let's start with Krobelus's ultimate, Exorcism. It has a duration of 30 seconds. In 30 seconds, lets say that each spirit can get off 2 attacks to be modest. Each spirit does an average damage of 46. At level 16, she has 24 spirits. That's

24 x 46 x 2 = 2208 unreduced damage.

Let's also add in her Carrion Swarm; let's say that your able to cast it 3 times in 30 seconds (very modest with a 4 second cooldown). That's 3 instances of 300 damage. So, we're up to 3108 unreduced damage. Let's reduce that by 25% to account for magic resistance and armor. We end up with 2331 single target damage. And we haven't even factored in her physical attacks or the lack of attacks from her enemies due to Silence; also remember that this is a modest estimation of her maximum damage potential.

Oh lets not forget that she gets healed by 25% of the damage done by her spirits. Just throw that in there for fun. You drooling yet? I know I was when I first ran this theory craft.

With this theory, we can recognize what Krobelus wants to do. She wants to stay alive for as long as possible. The longer she's alive, the more damage she will dish out. The longer she's alive, the longer her enemies won't be able to fight back. Let's figure out how to make her do this.


VI. Skill Builds

#1
Silence
Carrion Swarm
Carrion Swarm
Carrion Swarm
Carrion Swarm
Witchcraft
Exorcism

***To be continued.

VII. The Toolbox


VIII. Advanced Tactics


IX. Replays


X. Thanks


XI. Final Words


XII. Changelog
12/05/2011 Guide started. Outline established.
12/05/2011 Introduction and Philosophy drafted.
12/07/2011 Some general formatting.
12/14/2011 Added initial Skill Descriptions.
12/14/2011 1st draft of Role Discussion complete.
01/11/2012 Adjusted to 6.73c stat changes.
01/11/2012 Minor editting.