Vengeful Spirit's presence in competitive DotA has waxed and waned. A core pick in the days of sentinel vs scourge dota, she has been relegated to nigh-obscurity.

However, the buffs to wave of terror are non-trivial. The skill has been improved in each iteration and is definitely worth taking before end-game now.

Link to hero skills and stats

Skill build and Justification:

Magic Missile: 1,3,5,7
Wave of Terror: (2),(4),10,12,13,14
Command Aura: 2,4,8,9,(10),(12)
Nether Swap: 6, 11, 16
Attribute Bonus: 15, 17-end

Wave of Terror's 1400 range can be used to last hit in really harsh lanes. While this is a situational buff one of VS's biggest weaknesses has been her lack of lane presence. With the new wave of terror you can, albeit with some difficulty, last hit creeps from much higher range while harassing enemies. Command Aura's effect on damage output is nice overall as it improves your ally's ability to last hit, and the damage effect on creeps is rather trivial, especially for your jungle lane, as the extra push only offers to protect your jungle hero/pulling. Notice: Wave of terror now does damage, so it can be used to break BLINK DAGGER

It's during the mid-game that wave of terror is at its best. It gives line of sight through trees, to set up a swap. It is spammable so as to not run into a host of enemies while placing wards. It's a lot like dazzle's weave (which incidentally also gives vision), only with more of an instant effect on armor. Waving a hero in fog and then swapping him to your allies is an extremely powerful ganking tool that was only recently made available to VS. Minus five armor is also a fairly powerful damage boost, so make sure it's on enemies whenever possible. Notice that it has almost the same cooldown as Nether Swap, so the two should almost always be used in conjunction.

Item Build

Starting:
Magic Stickx1
Ironwood branch - spam
Courier/Consumables

Midgame:
Bottle
Magic Wand
Boots (preferably Phase to give you good movespeed. Travels would be really nice but only if you somehow managed to get them before the 15 minute mark)
2 Bracers/Nulls
TP/Wards

Endgame:
Bottle
Boots
Magic Wand
Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse / Aghanim's Scepter


The new Aghanim's on Vengeful Spirit doesn't seem to do too much for really quickly resolved team fights. It's only really nice if your team is mostly intact and the enemies try to flee, in which case you can guarantee the death of an additional enemy hero as your swap has cooled down by now. 10 second cooldown swap, however, is absolutely brutal in ganks, and if the enemies are avoiding team fights for a reasonable amount of time you should go for this item.

Sheep stick, however, is probably one of the best items you can get. It shores up any mana problems you may or may not have had, and lets you disable up to three heroes in a fight: swap one, stun another, and sheep a third. This gives your team a fairly good start in any team fight, and is without a doubt also brutal in ganks.

Gameplay

As far as gameplay goes, Vengeful Spirit exists solely to make enemy heroes die. She is a prime choice for a hero to go to one of the rune spots at the start of the game, as a Venge with the proper rune can easily give her mid solo an extra level and 300 extra gold.

A roaming Venge can opt to take a bottle out of the fountain. A venge that wants to spend some time in lanes will most certainly want +stats and consumables instead. Roaming with venge is no hard task: you show up in a lane, stun a hero, have your allies focus him to death, and then repeat. This is only really viable when you have the proper teamwork with said allies.

In-lane, Venge wants to mostly harass, with farming 600 gold quickly for bottle as a second priority. When she has enough mana for two stuns she should always look for a chance to get a kill.

Once she hits level 6, she will get swap. Always swap enemies closer to your allies, keeping in mind any escape routes you might offer them with your swap. Swap them to interrupt their teleports when you don't have mana for missile. Swap a chased ally and then stun the most dangerous target. The skill is extremely versatile, but isn't just a fire-and-forget move, most of the time. Use swap's range to its maximum potential. Swap enemies across the tree line and cliffs.