Death Prophet Guide by Qojqva
Artist: Zipfinator
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Author:
Qojqva & Co.
Date: 12/2018
Tags:
text
Death Prophet
Builds
Tactics
Analysis

Welcome

Welcome to Qojqva's Book of the Death Prophet, a hero guide part of the Book of Dota series!

Here you will find all the information you need to learn to play DP on a high level – from drafting and builds to the optimal playstyle in different lanes and situations. We hope you’ll enjoy this guide and find it useful!

qojqva dp stats
TL;DR:

Draft: DP is one of the few cores who are a safe pick early in the draft. She is very hard to counter both in the lanes and in the mid-late game, which makes her a very reliable hero, albeit predictable in terms of tactical playstyle.

Early Game: In the early laning stage bully your opponent with Spirit Syphon and attacks to create some space for yourself to get last hits and denies. In the later laning stage start playing a bit more carefully and use Crypt Swarm to out-push the wave and speed up your farm. Decide when to get your ultimate and when you have it – try to claim objectives with your team.

Mid & Late Game: Use the timing of your ultimate and important defensive items to push and force favorable fights. When your ultimate is down – use the space you’ve created and simply farm. Ideally, you will be able to get all outer towers in the mid game, which will allow you to out-farm your opponents, get Rosh and break their base in the late game.

Authors

Max "qojqva" Bröcker
Endorsement & Info

Qojqva is one of the very few old-school core players who have been able to consistently stay at the top of the game and to maintain their peak mechanical skill.

He has competed on legendary teams like MYM,  mousesports, Team Liquid, Team Tinker, Escape, NiP, and Alliance.

Nikolay "CTOMAHEH1" Kalchev
Info & Editing

CTOMAHEH1 started his pro career as a support in Basically Unknown together with Mind Control. Since then he has consistently been playing on the European T2 scene, most recently on Unchained Esports. 

His highest placement on the EU ladder is top 100 - he plays all roles (mainly support), which is untypical for high-ranking players and shows his great versatility and understanding of the game.

Martin "BRING IT ON" Slavov
Writing & Info

Martin has lots of experience writing about Dota and he is no pushover in the actual game - a Divine III player, Martin plays mid and carry heroes on a very high level.

He has been playing Dota since Guinsoo's Dota Allstars (more than 12 years) and he loves thinking about new builds and strategies.

Kyril "MrNiceGuy" Kotashev
PM, Writing & Editing

Esports and gaming enthusiast since forever and founder of Dotahaven.

Has been playing Dota since 2005 (5.84). An Ancient I player in Dota 2.

Death calls your name!

Death Prophet is an intelligence core hero able to deal a lot of sustained physical damage while also being extremely hard to kill. Her signature ability, Exorcism, makes her a monster in team fights and allows her to push towers like a bulldozer. This makes her one of the best cores for 5-man pushing strategies. She is also a strong laner thanks to her AoE nuke and Spirit Siphon which slows and drains HP from opponents and is very useful both offensively and defensively.

Dearth PRophet Loadot
Stats
Level 1
Level 15
Level 25
STR
19
Low
62
High
93
High
AGI
14
Low
33
Very Low
47
Low
INT
21
High
63
Very High
93
Very High
Attack
47-59
High
89-101
High
119-131
High
Armor
2.24
High
5.376
Medium
7.616
Low
Resistance
26
Medium
28
Medium
30
Medium
HP
542
Low
1316
High
1874
High
MP
390
Very High
1020
Very High
1470
Very High
MS
317
Very High
320
Very High
322
Very High
STRENGTHS

MAJOR

Powerful pusher:
Exorcism is one of the best pushing abilities in the game – it lasts for 35 seconds and deals large amounts of damage to both units and towers.

Reliable laner:
Death Prophet is not afraid of any mid lane match-up as she can hold her ground against pretty much anybody. Spirit Siphon is a very nice ability for lane harassment, HP sustain and even surviving bad situations and Crypt Swarm is very useful for securing farm, pushing-out the lane, and harassing.

MINOR

Pretty hard to kill:
The strength of the hero in fights comes from her abilities – they stay strong even in the later stages of the game and scale very well without items. This is why DP can invest all of her income into mobility and survivability items, making the hero extremely hard to kill combined with the heal from Siphon and even her silence.

Good stats:
Death Prophet has one of the highest STR gains of all intelligence heroes and her INT and INT gain is also pretty good. Starting MS is also above average.  

WEAKNESSES

MAJOR

Very dependent on her ultimate:
Exorcism is an extremely powerful ability which lasts long and deals great damage, but when it ends, the impact of DP is greatly reduced. The problem is that it has a very long CD. This is why you have to be careful when you use it and you want to make sure you achieve something with it before it ends as the enemies will be able to play aggressively when they know it’s down.

Level-dependent:
While she can be useful without that much farm, Death Prophet is dependent on her levels as she uses mostly her abilities to deal damage. They all scale pretty well and she wants Exorcism level 3 as soon as possible.

MINOR

No disables:
Aside from a weak slow and a silence, Death Prophet cannot easily stick to her target. This is a problem because she needs time to kill people with Exorcism.

Slow casting animations:
Aside from Spirit Siphon which is almost instant (0.1s), Crypt Swarm, Silence and Exorcism have 0.5s casting time which is pretty long.

Replays

Optic Gaming vs VGJ.T, CHINA DOTA2 SUPER MAJOR

MATCH ID: 3930084254
Replay

CCnC has a very good performance on DP. His team is facing a Brood Mother mid and Optic make the smart decision to send DP + Chen into the offlane while Morph + Rubick go mid against the Brood. The reason is that Morph has a strong AoE and more importantly – a mobility skill that can help him survive versus the Brood spiders much more easily.

As a result of this decision, both DP and Morph have a good start in the game and they are able to keep up in farm to the extremely fast farming Brood. This allows them to win mid game fights and secure a victory in 35 minutes. Notice that CnCC goes for a fast BKB to maximize his impact in those mid game fights and secure the game.

TNC vs EG, CHINA DOTA2 SUPER MAJOR

MATCH ID: 3928462587
Replay

Armel doesn’t get the best start in this game - he dies to QoP on the 7th, 11th and 16th minute and he doesn’t get that much farm from the lane. Despite this he has a very high impact in the game and helps TNC secure the victory – he does the most hero damage on his team, more even than his very farmed Gyro.

Notice his skill build – the fast Aeon Disk allows him to survive versus the burst damage of QoP and to start winning mid-game fights and taking objectives.

This is a great replay to watch if you want to learn how to come back into the game after a bad start and start winning fights and taking map control.

Drafting

DP forces fights and pushes when her ultimate is up and farms when her ultimate is down. This pretty much determines her playstyle. Consequently, she fits best 5-man Dota pushing strategies. Nonetheless, the fact that she is a reliable laner and that she scales very well into the mid and late game makes her useful in a lot of situations and allows you to draft creatively.

She is usually picked as a position 2 hero – you typically want another carry in your lineup because even though DP scales well, she is not a hard carry and she is CD reliant.

DP is one of the most stable and reliable laners – tough to kill, close to impossible to harass or zone out unless multiple heroes focus her. She’s also able to stand her ground in any match-up and possibly even swap lanes. This means you can pick her early in the draft without revealing your pos. 1 hero and your overall strategy. It’s not a surprise that DP is one of the most popular pos. 2 heroes when the metagame is focused on fighting and pushing.

Lastly but equally importantly – unlike many heroes that scale well into the late game DP is a space creator, not just a space taker. She can start playing aggressively and pushing as soon as she has her ultimate and a couple of cheap survivability items.

Solo mid #2

As we mentioned, Death Prophet needs levels to be effective and the mid lane is the best way to give her a flying start. Moreover, she is a very reliable 1v1 hero: she’s pretty hard to gank thanks to Siphon and with TP support she can even turn fights around. She can also control her lane well enough with her AoE nuke. 

Side lane #2

DP is a relatively flexible laner and Siphon is a pretty strong skill in combination with heroes with good harass and kill potential. This means that she can be used in the side lanes:

In the safe lane, she can usually deal with the offlaner on her own, which frees up the supports to Zona Industrială, Iași, Romaniaroam and be active around the map. Being alone in the lane most of the item also means she will get close to solo XP.

In the offlane, she is usually a part of an offensive dual lane. This is possible mainly thanks to Spirit Siphon – the spell lets you trade harass favorably and when combined with a support with good kill potential it can help you net kills. (Building an offensive lane with DP is a good idea only when the enemy safe lane is relatively weak. Facing a very strong dual or trilane is usually a bad idea because you are squishy early on in the game.)

Synergy

Good friends to have are:

Other 5-man pushers: Underlord, Jakiro, Jugger, Luna, Gyro, Nature’s Prophet, Enigma, Pugna 

Underlord Portrait
Jakiro Portrait
Juggernaut
Luna
Gyro
Nature's Prophet Portrait
Enigma Portrait
Pugna

With heroes like those, you can group up and push early in the game. Taking all towers and Roshan ASAP gives a huge advantage and you could even push high ground in the mid game if your opponents are starved for resources because they’ve lost all map control.

Heroes with defensive abilities: Oracle, Dazzle, Abbadon, Omni

Oracle Portrait
Dazzle Portrait
Abbadon
Omniknight portrait

DP is definitely a hero that wants to survive for as long as possible in fights in order to deal as much sustained damage as possible with Exorcism. This is why her item build is usually extremely defensive. Heroes with saves make killing quickly the DP almost impossible.

A special mention should go to Oracle – DP doesn’t deal damage with right clicks, which means she doesn’t mind getting disarmed by Fate’s Edict. Moreover, the heal from Spirit Siphon gets amplified by False Promise, which means DP is extremely unlikely to die after its duration.

Team fight control: SK, Disruptor, Enigma, Puck, Tide, Slardar

Sand King
Disruptor Portrait
Enigma Portrait
Puck Portrait
Tidehunter Portrait
Slardar Portrait

DP doesn’t have good control and she needs time to deal damage with Exorcism. Allies with good team fight control will make her a much bigger threat offensively in the fights that you want to force.

Counters

DP is one of the cores who don’t really have tremendously good or bad matchups. This means she is a relatively safe pick early in the draft which is a big plus. 

Strong Against:

High HP Heroes: Treant, Tiny, Axe, Timber, Tide, Cent, Pudge, Doom, Underlord, DK, Brew

Treant Protector
Tiny
Axe Portrait
Timbersaw
Tidehunter Portrait
Centaur
Pudge
Doom
Underlord Portrait
Dragon knight
Brewmaster

Spirit Siphon heals for a percentage of the target’s max HP, which means draining one or two such heroes in a fight will make you extremely hard to kill. Moreover, such heroes are usually immobile and they have trouble breaking the link. Even if they are mobile (Timber, Cent), you can solve this problem with your silence.

Out of this group, it is most uncomfortable to play against the heroes with high armor like DK because you deal primarily physical damage. If you are playing such a hero against DP it is great to buy armor and mobility items rather pure HP items.

Heroes countered by silence: Storm, Io, Brew, Timber, ES, Jugg, Necro, Puck, Phoenix, QoP, Sky, LS

Storm spirit
IO Wisp
Brewmaster
Timbersaw
Earth Spirit
Juggernaut
Necro
Puck Portrait
Phoenix
Queen of pain
Skywrath Mage Portrait
Lifestealer Portrait

Despite having a slow cast animation, your silence has a very decent duration, which makes it very strong against mobile heroes who rely on their spells to survive. You are strongest against heroes who like to go inside the fight and rely on their spell to disengage or survive (Storm, Timber, Brew, ES, Necro, Puck) or heroes who are squishy and have low armor and you can finish them off before the silence wears off (QoP, Phoenix, Sky).

Weak Against:

Anti-Push: Sniper, Medusa, Lina, KotL, AA, Beast, NP, WR

Sniper
Medusa
Lina
Keeper of the Light
Ancient Apparition Portrait
Beastmaster
Nature's Prophet Portrait
Windranger

Heroes who are great at defending their high-ground and slowing down the game are a great pick against DP. If they can scale well into the late game this makes things even more problematic. Make sure you have a strong carry alongside DP if you are playing against such heroes because the game is likely to go late.

Long-range impact: Sniper, Medusa, Drow, Lina, Mirana, Enchantress

Sniper
Medusa
Drow Ranger
Lina
Mirana
Enchantress

DP has no way to close the gap on these heroes, which makes it hard to kill them in fights. The solution is a Blink Dagger (or having allies who are great at closing the gap), but it is not a perfect solution because Blink gives you no raw tankiness and when you blink offensively you risk getting picked off.

Illusions and units: PL, Brood, TB, NP

Phantom Lancer
Broodmother Portrait
Terrorblade
Nature's Prophet Portrait

It’s very hard to focus down the hero with your ultimate if you don’t know who he is and your only AoE damage is pretty weak in the mid and late game. Those heroes are also often decent split-pushers – early on when they cannot fight you and your team directly, they can out-push the waves and split-push and get enough items fast enough to challenge you later on in the game. It’s worth mentioning that Brood is mainly a lane matchup and you should try to dodge the lane (your AoE is not strong enough and she can easily break the Siphon link).

Bloodseeker

Blood Seeker is very fast and hard to catch in fights and he can lock you down in one place with his ultimate. This might help his team to easily disengage, wait the ultimate out and fight afterward.

Undying Portrait

Undying is problematic because he makes you squishier the longer the fight lasts (which is a problem because you usually like long fights and you hate being squishy). Moreover, you don’t have a way to deal with Tomb Stone easily.

Skills

Death prophet Crypt Swarm
Death prophet Silence
Death prophet Spirit Siphon
Death prophet Exorcism

Sends a swarm of winged beasts to savage enemy units in front of Death Prophet.

STATS

Cast Animation: 0.5+0.77

Cast Range: 600

Starting Radius: 110

Travel Distance: 810

End Radius: 300

Damage: 75/150/225/300

CD: 8/7/6/5

Mana: 85/110/135/160

Crypt Swarm

Mechanics:

  • When targeting a unit, Crypt Swarm is released towards its current location upon cast.
  • Crypt Swarm travels at a speed of 1100, taking 0.74 (0.87 with talent) seconds to travel the full distance.
  • Can hit units up to 1110 range away (travel distance + end radius).
  • The complete area is shaped like a cone.

Uses:

Crypt Swarm is a simple AoE nuke ability. In the lane you can use it to out-push the wave, to secure last hits, and to harass. Later on, it becomes your main farming tool and it also provides decent damage in fights.

Its biggest strength is the very short cooldown, which makes the ability great for farming. Although DP doesn’t have that much mana initially, with a few clarities and Eul’s DP can spam it almost constantly.

Prevents enemy units in a target area from casting spells.

STATS

Cast Animation: 0.4+0.77

Cast Range: 900

Radius: 425

Duration: 3/4/5/6

CD: 15/14/13/12

Mana: 80/90/100/110

Silence

Mechanics:

  • Applies a debuff on enemies within the area on cast. Entering or leaving the area afterward has no effect.

Uses:

  • Silence has 900 cast range, so it can be used from a great distance and the radius allows you to often cast it on multiple enemies. You can hit the target with the edge of the ability – that essentially increases its casting range and you can silence the enemy from over 1000 range.
  • Synergizes very well with Eul’s Scepter – you can lift your enemy and then silence him as soon as he falls down. This provides a solution for the slow cast animation, but you should be careful to time the silence well.
  • Silence is obviously countered by a ton of things, but supports probably won’t have BKB, Manta, Lotus Orb or such, so they will be your main target in a team-fights to silence.

Creates a spirit link between Death Prophet and an enemy unit, draining 14 + 1%/2.5%/4%/5.5% Max HP per second and steal 4%/6%/8%/10% movement speed from the enemy.

STATS

Cast Animation: 0.1+0

Cast Range: 500

Link Break Distance: 750

Number of Charges: 1/2/3/4

Base Health Drain per Second: 14

Max Health Drain per Second: 1%/2.5%/4%/5.5%

Move Speed Change: 4%/6%/8%/10%

Duration: 6

Charge Replenish Time: 60/52/44/36

CD: 0

Mana: 70

Spirit Siphon

Mechanics:

  • The link breaks only when the target gets out of range or dies.
  • The health restored on Death Prophet is independent of the actual amount of damage dealt. This means even if the target takes no damage at all, Death Prophet still gets healed.
  • Spirit Siphon doesn’t drain through BKB even though the animation persists.
  • Drains a percentage of the enemy's max health in 0.25-second intervals, starting 0.25 seconds after cast, resulting in 24 instances.
  • Can drain up to 84 + 6%/15%/24%/33% (12%/21%/30%/39% with talent) of the enemy's max health when the link lasts its full duration (before reductions). This makes the spell very strong both offensively and defensively against tanky heroes
  • Cannot be cast on units which already are affected by Spirit Siphon. However, when cast on multiple units, Death Prophet gets healed from each one.
  • Does not provide vision over the target. However, the link does not break upon losing vision.
  • When losing vision over the target, the link visually draws to the location where the target was seen last time.
  • Cannot be cast on Roshan.

Uses:

Spirit Siphon drains % of your enemy’s max HP which means it scales extremely well even in the late game. The more HP the enemy has, the more damage you deal and the more you get healed. The duration of BKBs is also lower in the late game.

It’s a great ability on the lane as you can use it to zone out the enemy – if they try to fight you, you will use Siphon to win the trade.

Synergizes very well with Eul’s Scepter – if you’re in trouble, you can cast one or more Spirit Siphons on nearby enemies and lift yourself. Siphon heals you even while lifted, so when you fall down you will be on more HP.

Unleashes evil spirits to drain the life of nearby enemy units and structures. At the end of the spell's duration, Death Prophet is healed in proportion to the damage dealt. Lasts 35 seconds.

STATS

Cast Animation: 0.5+0.77

Spirits Acquisition Radius: 700

Number of Spirits: 8/16/24

Spirits Minimum Damage: 59

Spirits Maximum Damage: 64

Life Drain: 25%

Exorcism Duration: 35

CD: 145

Mana: 200/300/400

Exorcism

Mechanics:

  • The spirits move at a speed of 500. They wander within 700 radius around Death Prophet. They can only turn by moving in about 150 radius arcs.
  • Spirits spawn at Death Prophet's location in 0.35-second intervals, first being released immediately on cast, so it takes 2.1/4.5/6.9 (4.5/6.9/9.3 with talent) seconds for all spirits to be released.
  • The acquisition radius specifies the area around Death Prophet where spirits acquire an attack target automatically.
  • Can acquire and attack units in the Fog of War, but not invisible or invulnerable units. However, if their target turns invulnerable, they still keep attacking it.
  • The spirits prioritize attacking the target that Death Prophet is attacking.
  • The spirits can attack every attackable enemy unit, including buildings and wards.
  • The spirits can attack units which take a certain number of attacks to get killed but deal no damage to them.
  • The attacks of the spirits are not regular attacks, so they fully ignore things like evasion and damage block.
  • The spirits have to return to Death Prophet after each attack they make before being able to attack their target again.
  • When a spirit acquires a target, it chases it up to 1200 range away from Death Prophet.
  • The spirits are not units and cannot be interacted with, or affected by anything in any way.
  • The heal happens once a spirit returns to Death Prophet at the end of the duration and is based on 25% of their attack damage multiplied by the number of attacks the spirit did. This means that it does not matter how much damage they actually dealt, the heal is calculated before the damage is reduced by armor or other sources.
  • Recasting Exorcism causes the previous cast to end prematurely, making the spirits start returning to Death Prophet and heal her.

Uses:

Exorcism has a good duration (35s) but a very long cooldown (145s) – this is why you will have to be careful with how you use it in the mid and late game as your enemies will always prefer to fight when you don’t have it.

You can use Exorcism for early kills as well, but you’ll have to slow and chase the enemy for a pretty long time. This means using it for solo kill attempts is very risky and it is much better to use it together with your teammates.

Exorcism is best used while pushing as the tower cannot run away from you, so you’re able to deal maximum amounts of damage. Moreover, your enemies will either be forced to let the tower fall or to fight during your ultimate to defend it – a hard choice.

Keep in mind that the spirits will prioritize the target you’re attacking, so make sure to attack the enemy or tower you want to focus for as long as possible to make sure the spirits have locked in.

Skill Builds

DP has two skills which are clear winners in the early game – Swarm and Siphon. Both are very useful and which one you max first depends on your priorities: dominating your lane opponent or simply farming as fast and safely as possible.

Getting a point in the Silence after your ult is possible versus mobile heroes, but it is very unconventional because, usually, you need to max your other spells ASAP.

Delaying your ultimate is also possible – if you wouldn’t be pushing or fighting right away you don’t need it. More points in Siphon will make you harder to kill and more points in Swarm will help you farm faster. You can always get your ult once you decide to push. That being said, pushing right away on lvl6 is not a bad idea at all if your lane matchup allows it.

Swarm Build
Spirit Siphon Build:
Death prophet Crypt Swarm
1
Death prophet Spirit Siphon
2
Death prophet Spirit Siphon
3
Death prophet Crypt Swarm
4
Death prophet Crypt Swarm
5
Death prophet Exorcism
6
Death prophet Crypt Swarm
7
Death prophet Spirit Siphon
8
Death prophet Spirit Siphon
9
Talent Icon
10
Death prophet Silence
11
Death prophet Exorcism
12
Death prophet Silence
13
Death prophet Silence
14
Talent Icon
15
Death prophet Silence
16
Death prophet Exorcism
18
Talent Icon
20
Talent Icon
25
Pros: fastest farming speed; decent harass;
Cons: sub-optimal survivability and fighting potential in the lane;

This is the more common build simply because AoE nukes are extremely useful in the lane. As mentioned, you can use the Swarm to secure last hits while harassing and to push-out the lane if you need to (quite useful for pressuring the enemy tower). Having it on max level as soon as possible also increases you farm rate because it allows you to farm jungle camps faster.

In lane matchups against heroes who like to nuke the wave themselves and even go to the jungle afterward (SF, Lina, Tinker, etc.), Swarm will always be the better choice because you will rarely have the opportunity to use Siphon.

Despite maxing Swarm first, it’s good to take Spirit Siphon at level 3, so that the second charge can start refreshing as early as possible. Moreover, on low levels, heroes cannot out-push the wave efficiently and you will have more opportunities to use the spell.

Death prophet Spirit Siphon
1
Death prophet Crypt Swarm
2
Death prophet Spirit Siphon
3
Death prophet Crypt Swarm
4
Death prophet Spirit Siphon
5
Death prophet Exorcism
6
Death prophet Spirit Siphon
7
Death prophet Crypt Swarm
8
Death prophet Crypt Swarm
9
Talent Icon
10
Death prophet Silence
11
Death prophet Exorcism
12
Death prophet Silence
13
Death prophet Silence
14
Talent Icon
15
Death prophet Silence
16
Death prophet Exorcism
18
Talent Icon
20
Talent Icon
25
Pros: highest survivability and harass potential;
Cons: sub-optimal farming speed;

Spirit Siphon is maxed when you want to dominate your lane (e.g. versus a melee or short range heroes). Moreover, it makes you more survivable, so if your lane enemy is contesting the lane or there are a lot of early fights, max the Siphon.

Talents

+8 Exorcism Spirits

25

Exorcism Grants Haste

-3s Crypt Swarm Cooldown

20

+500 Health

+175 Cast Range

15

+1% Max Health Spirit Siphon

+15% Magic Resistance

10

+40 Damage

Lvl10: Magic Resistance in Dota stacks multiplicatively, so the talent increases it to 34% total. The damage feels a bit more useful even though DP doesn’t hit that much in fights simply because you start farming faster. You can’t go wrong with either, however.

Lvl15: The cast range also increases the Spirit Siphon break distance to 750 and buffs all of your other abilities and items, so it is definitely more useful and could even lead to a higher total heal value by making it harder to get out of range.

Lvl20: Crypt Swarm is great for farming purposes but in a fight 500 HP is a huge deal and at level 20 you’re probably looking for objectives and team-fights rather than farming tools.

Lvl25: +8 spirits are basically one more level on Exorcism, which is huge. One might argue that DP is fast enough as it is (with Phase Boots, Eul’s, possibly Drums) but Haste also means that you can’t be slowed by anything – you will have 550 speed even while hexed. Most pro players choose the Haste for that reason – it’s the safer choice.

Item Builds

DP’s items need to fix her mana issues so she can farm with Crypt Swarm and give her survivability and mobility so that she can do well in team fights.

The early game items are pretty standard – Null Talisman so you can have enough damage to last hit on the lane and Magic Wand to save you in rough situations. Raindrops are also pretty good for extra survivability and mana regen.

Your only real core item is Eul’s simply because it has a lot of synergy with your skill set and you need the early mana regen to farm. After Eul’s your choices are a bit more open:

Tanky BKB Build

This build is ideal if your opponents have a lot of magical damage and control and you need a fast BKB to be able to force mid game fights. Getting easily controlled means you will get kited and enemies will be able to disengage during your ult, which is not a good thing to have. Moreover, BKB is very useful against heavy magic damage.

The Plate Mail after BKB makes you very survivable against physical damage as well. Get Octarine before finishing the Shiva because you will need the raw HP boost and spell life steal for maximum survivability.

If enemies have a lot of magical burst but don’t have control, you can go for Hood/Pipe instead of BKB (and possibly leave BKB for later). Moreover, if you are afraid of getting burst down before being able to activate BKB, getting Aeon before or after the BKB is an OK decision. 

Starting Items
Null talisman
Faerie Fire
Pulled Tango
Pulled Tango
Iron branch
Early Game
Magic wand
Phase boots
Euls
Mid Game
Black King Bar
Plate mail
Octarine_Core_icon
Late Game
Shiva's_Guard_icon
Scythe of Vyse
Null talisman
Faerie Fire
Pulled Tango
Pulled Tango
Iron branch
Magic wand
Phase boots

Phase Boots:  allow you to move faster so that you can chase better with Spirit Siphon or Exorcism. Since you usually build Eul’s as well, your move speed becomes insane.

Euls

Eul’s Scepter: The best early game items for DP. It increases your mana which allows you to farm with Crypt Swarm, it gives you 40 movement speed (473 move speed with Phase Boots effect). Most importantly: the Cyclone synergizes with most of your abilities. You can silence a target immediately after it falls down, use it on yourself while you’re healing with Siphon AND Exorcism continues to deal damage while you’re in the air.

Black King Bar

BKB: Since you want to take team-fights with Exorcism, BKB is always a good choice – it makes you almost immortal for its duration and allows you to cast all of your spells multiple times in a fight and chase down enemies freely.

Plate mail

Plate Mail: A casual Plate Mail is a great way to boost your armor without committing to a whole item, so it’s usually bought between 2 big items – for example before BKB or Octarine. It can later be upgraded into Shiva or Lotus Orb, depending on what you need. Shiva is a better protection against physical damage while Lotus Orb will allow you to dispel/return abilities from yourself or teammates. 

Octarine_Core_icon

Octarine: Octarine is a great item for DP – the damage dealt by Exorcism and Spirit Siphon heals you a lot. On top of that, the cooldown reduction is huge for Exorcism (reduces it to 108s, down from 145) – it essentially shortens your downtime and the window that your enemies have after you’ve used it. 

Shiva's_Guard_icon

Shiva’s Guard: Great agains Physical dmg enemies, makes you harder to die which means that you will deal more damage in the fights.

Scythe of Vyse

Hex: Hex is not a core item because it provides inferior stats compared to other luxuries. Nonetheless, it’s good when you need to lock down a certain hero and your teammates don’t have enough disables or can’t afford to buy it. Great against mobile targets who can kite you during Exorcism.

Blink & Aeon Build

You need mobility to be able to easily chase your opponents or to close the gap on hard to reach heroes. Moreover, Blink has amazing synergy with Eul’s (you can instantly Blink after the Eul’s duration to save yourself). The drawback of Eul’s + Blink is that you don’t get any raw tankiness, so to compensate you get Aeon right after Blink. It will not only increase your raw HP, but it will save you if you get caught and burst down. Your late game choices are open but most commonly you would want to go for the standard Shiva + Octarine/Hex. Octarine will give you more tankiness while the Blink + Hex is great for initiating and sticking to a target.

Get this build when you feel you need more mobility to be efficient in fights.

Starting Items
Null talisman
Iron branch
Faerie Fire
Pulled Tango
Pulled Tango
Early Game
Null talisman
Magic wand
Power Treads intelligence
Euls
Mid Game
Blink_Dagger_icon
Aeon Disk
Late Game
Shiva's_Guard_icon
Octarine_Core_icon
Black King Bar
Scythe of Vyse
Null talisman
Iron branch
Faerie Fire
Pulled Tango
Pulled Tango
Null talisman

Null: Second Null can be really good if you are in a match up in which you need to buff your damage so you can contest last hits easier.

Magic wand
Power Treads intelligence

Power Treads: the stats give additional tankiness or mana pool.

Euls

Eul’s Scepter: The best early game items for DP. It increases your mana which allows you to farm with Crypt Swarm, it gives you 40 movement speed (473 move speed with Phase Boots effect). Most importantly: the Cyclone synergizes with most of your abilities. You can silence a target immediately after it falls down, use it on yourself while you’re healing with Siphon AND Exorcism continues to deal damage while you’re in the air.

Blink_Dagger_icon

Blink Dagger: DP’s abilities require good positioning, so you can cast Exorcism from distance and then blink into the enemies to cast silence and multiple Spirit Siphons. It’s extremely useful against heroes who keep their distance and you need a way to close the gap. It’s also great defensively when combined with Eul’s (blink out of danger right after you hit the ground).

Aeon Disk

Aeon Disk: An item that can save you from initiations and ensure you’re able to cast Exorcism. It’s amazing against strong burst damage and the fact that it doesn’t allow you to deal damage for a short duration doesn’t bother you a lot especially if you’ve just cast your ultimate – DP deals damage in longer stretches of time. The HP and mana are also very useful in general.

Shiva's_Guard_icon

Shiva’s Guard: The best defense for an INT hero against physical damage. Combined with HP items and your heal, it will make you an extremely hard target to kill.

Octarine_Core_icon

Octarine: Octarine is a great item for DP – the damage dealt by Exorcism and Spirit Siphon heals you a lot. On top of that, the cooldown reduction is huge for Exorcism (reduces it to 108s, down from 145) – it essentially shortens your downtime and the window that your enemies have after you’ve used it. 

Black King Bar

BKB: Since you want to take team-fights with Exorcism, BKB is always a good choice – it makes you almost immortal for its duration and allows you to cast all of your spells multiple times in a fight and chase down enemies freely.

Scythe of Vyse

Hex: Hex is not a core item because it provides inferior stats compared to other luxuries. Nonetheless, it’s good when you need to lock down a certain hero and your teammates don’t have enough disables or can’t afford to buy it. Great against mobile targets who can kite you during Exorcism.

Other Items

Early & Mid Game
Infused Raindrop
Bottle
Drums
Veil of Discord
Solar Crest Icon
Hood
Late Game
Linken's Sphere
Refresher orb
Heart
Ghost Scepter
Infused Raindrop

Rain Drop: Not only can they help you to survive, but the mana regen is also great for farming.

Bottle

Bottle: Most people nowadays don’t buy Bottle as it doesn’t provide enough regeneration to sustain you on the lane and it doesn’t give any stats either. Nonetheless, if you go for the Swarm build and you are constantly out-pushing the lane it could be quite easy to control the rune and maximize the impact of your Bottle.

Drums

Drums: Drums provide some useful HP and further increase your movement speed. The only reason they’re optional is that they slow your Eul’s timing, but you can always buy them if you want the cheap tankiness early on.

Veil of Discord

Veil: Veil increases the damage from Spirit Siphon and also gives great stats. The extra Null Talisman comes very early and allows you to dominate the lane. The armor is also useful, especially early on. The disadvantage is the same as Drums – Eul’s comes slower.

Solar Crest Icon

Solar Crest: An armor item which is great when you’re playing against mostly physical damage - for example when both enemy cores rely only on hits like TA and Void or any other similar combination. Solar Crest also has offensive use as Exorcism deals physical damage and you can lower the enemy’s armor to deal more damage.

Hood

Hood: Cheap survivability item, this time against magic users. Not only it increases your magic resistance, but the barrier is also pretty useful in early fights. It could also be upgraded into Pipe later on to provide protection for your whole team. It's usually built right after Eul’s.

Linken's Sphere

Linken’s Sphere: Linken’s is a good tool to block initiation abilities like Doom, Duel, Flaming Lasso and such that will prevent you from using Exorcism. Nonetheless, it is quite expensive and gives low stats, so usually, Aeon Disk is a superior choice – it might not block the initiation but it will dispel the disable once enemies try to burst you down. Linken’s is a good choice only versus Doom (and possibly LC) because if you get Doomed before you use Exorcism you are absolutely useless in fights.

Refresher orb

Refresher: Another great item to ensure that you will always have Exorcism. Refresher is however built only after you have enough survivability as it costs 5200 gold and doesn’t give anything useful other than the active ability. Another big advantage is that you can always keep it in your stash as you don’t have to use the second Exorcism quickly in a fight (you have enough time to switch items and prepare), so it won’t waste an inventory slot in the super late game.

Heart

Heart: Provides a ton of HP which is always good for the hero. However, make sure you already have the other essential items – it’s a late game luxury if you need even more raw tankiness.

Ghost Scepter

Ghost Scepter: Very useful against right-clickers with a lot of burst damage – Ursa, PA, TA.

Early Game

Death Prophet 350px

The early game of Death Prophet is pretty straightforward: You use Swarm to secure last hits and harass and you use Spirit Siphon to get favorable harass exchanges and even possibly zone-out your lane opponent. Which one you prioritize depends on your lane match-up and build.


You are squishy early on so defensive Spirit Siphon use will also let you survive harder laning situations.


Farm on the lane;
Harass the enemy if possible;
Rotate to push when you have Exorcism;
Farming:

DP’s starting damage is pretty good, so you shouldn’t have much trouble with last-hitting. (You can buy a second Null Talisman for better lane control, even if you don’t plan to use it for Veil. It’s good for harassing as well.)

Since farming on the lane will be your only source of income for the first few minutes, you should focus on that. Use Crypt Swarm to secure last hits and harass the enemy at the same time if possible.

Once you have level 3 or 4 Crypt Swarm you can spam it to farm faster. Push-out the lane and farm the jungle. Make sure you always have a clarity – DP has high intelligence, so the clarity regen is amplified by a lot, allowing you to spam the swarm as much as you want. 

Harassing & Kill Potential:

As we mentioned, DP has decent damage and she also has 600 attack range, so she can afford to harass most heroes, especially in the early levels.

Early Laning Stage:

At low levels, you should use Spirit Siphon and hit the enemy. Chase them for as long as possible before you reach the enemy tower’s range – make sure you don’t get hit by the tower, otherwise, the trade will probably not be worth it. Watch the creep equilibrium and use the space to last-hit and deny. Don’t commit to a kill unless the enemy is very low or your supports are rotating – DP is not a good hero for solo kills.

Most heroes don’t have an answer to the Spirit Siphon that early, so you can gain a considerable advantage here. (Keep in mind, however, that the enemies can place a support to help their mid laner, in which case you won’t be able to do much but farm unless you also get help.)

Late Laning Stage:

At levels 4-5 you shouldn’t be too aggressive because the enemy will already have level 2-3 on their important and dangerous abilities and if you overextend to harass with Siphon you can easily die to a rotation. Unless you have a huge advantage (e.g. 2 levels) or the matchup favors you heavily, you should start playing more carefully and focus more on last-hitting.

Once you’re level 6 you can skill your ultimate and if the enemy is being too aggressive you can attempt to kill him with Siphon and Exorcism. Keep in mind that you need to wait for a perfect situation – the enemy needs to be very close to you and far from his tower so that you have some time to chase him down. More often, however, you will simply use your ult to pressure the enemy tower and get an advantage this way.

Try not to use all of your Spirit Siphon charges for harassing – you usually want to have 1 or 2 in case the enemies make a move on you. Unless they burst you down in a matter of seconds, you will be able to heal a lot and escape or even turn the fight if you receive TP support. 

Timings and Rotations:

The most important timing is obviously getting Exorcism – as we mentioned, however, you can delay it if you don’t feel you can use it to push right away or to punish an overextending enemy. Ideally, you want to take it at level 7-8 and use it to either push the enemy’s tower (if he’s rotated somewhere else) or move to another lane and push the tower there together with your teammates.

In this regard you’re like a Dragon Knight – you want to use your ultimate to constantly pressure towers with your team. Fighting against Exorcism is extremely hard as the spirits are able to deal huge amounts of damage, so most of the times the push should be uncontested if you’re with 2-3 teammates. If you manage to get some kills on that lane – that’s a huge bonus too.

Use the time while Exorcism is on cooldown to farm.

In case your team is not in position to push, just max Crypt Swarm and use it to farm-up until you are strong enough to fight (e.g. when you get your BKB).

Video Example:

In this game, we will observe Moonn’s Death Prophet against team GeekFam.

He chooses to start with Crypt Swarm and uses it to secure last hits as well as harass the enemy OD in the same time. He does a pretty good job as he manages to take half of OD’s HP during the first 2 waves while losing almost none.

Look at how they both hold their creeps at 0:50 so that they don’t go under tower range. This is a common technique to make sure that the next wave will be close to your tower too.

He picks a second Null Talisman – also a pretty common choice, even if you don’t build Veil, it improves your lane control and helps you last hit against enemies with high damage.

Take a note how he abuses OD’s low attack range and constantly hits him when he’s not last-hitting throughout the entire laning stage. He has 75 damage at level 3 and those hits hurt. He can’t use Spirit Siphon to harass the OD too much because he can use Astral defensively.

There’s a small miss-click at 2:50 with Spirit Siphon on a ranged creep.

At 3:20 he manages to get a solo kill on the OD. He decided to go in because OD had just used his Astral Imprisonment and had no way to defend himself, so DP knew he had a chance to secure a kill.

At 5:40 he gets ganked by 3 heroes and although he dies, you can see how hard it was to take him down after he used 2 Spirit Siphons.

He gets ganked again at 7:50 and plays it very well – he instantly silences the 2 supports, then uses 2 Spirit Siphons and casts Exorcism – the ghosts start hitting as soon as they come out and OD dies almost instantly, with the other 2 guys following him shortly after. 

Mid & Late Game

Death Prophet Effigy 350px

In the perfect scenario, you want to push all outer towers with Exorcism and if you see an opportunity – to take Rosh as well. That gives a huge gold advantage to your entire team and gains you a lot of map control. You will need Exorcism for every push, so this will take time (DP is not a hero that can take all outer towers in 20 minutes), but the good side is that with Crypt Swarm you farm relatively fast so you can use the free space quite well and scale into the mid-late game.


Push with your team;
Farm between Exorcisms;
Timings:

Most of the times you will be waiting for a specific defensive item that will allow you to win fights. Usually, that’s BKB, but armor items like Plate Mail, Lotus Orb, Shiva’s are sometimes needed too. Plate Mail + BKB is a nice solution that gives you protection against almost everything. Aeon Disk is also an important item for pushing against teams with good initiation and burst damage.

Exorcism scales well, so you will gain a lot of power with every Exorcism level. At level 20 you also gain +500 Health from a talent, so that also boosts your survivability. Ideally, level 20 is the perfect point to look for a big fight and break the enemy base.

Comeback Potential:

Your play style doesn’t change much even when you are playing from behind. Use Crypt Swarm and Eul’s to farm-up as fast as possible in order to get to important defensive items (BKB, Aeon Disk) that will allow you to take fights. Out-push the waves with Crypt Swarm to slow the game down.

Try to reclaim map control every time your ult is up and you have a new defensive item (e.g. smoke gank with your team and push with Exorcism when one enemy is dead).

If you cannot push the enemy base don’t try to force it – you can scale quite well in the late game and you are a 2nd position hero, so ideally you will have another hero that scales well and could help you take a late victory.

Team Fights:

Let’s start with saying that you never want to be on the front lines when a team-fight breaks out. That can allow the enemies to disable you and eventually to burst you down before you can use Exorcism and BKB. You want to be sitting behind your teammates until you see where the enemies are and enter the fight afterward and assume your typical aggressive position.

Once you use Exorcism, go into the middle of the fight and use Spirit Siphon on anybody close to you. It deals a lot of damage and heals you in the meantime. With 2 Siphons on high HP heroes you’re pretty much immortal and even if enemies attempt to bring you down you have a defensive Cyclone to save yourself.

Make sure to hit the hero you want your spirits to target – 1 or 2 hits should be enough, then just follow him so he can’t break the Spirit Siphon.

Keep in mind that Silence has a huge cast range and can affect multiple heroes, so throw it over a few enemies and let them deal with it. Chances are support heroes won’t have an answer to it and a well-timed silence will reduce their fight impact a lot.

In case you get focused, cast as many Spirit Siphons as you can and use Eul to lift yourself. Siphons will heal you while you’re in the air and your teammates will have more time to help you.

Notice how CCnC prepares for the fight by pre-activating his ultimate and popping his BKB just when he enters the fight. This allows him to easily use his Cheese when his HP falls and allows him to continue chasing the enemy team

At 00:25 of the video he manages to land a 4-man Silence, which prevents the Omni and WD from helping their Brood and effectively lets DP's team push rax very easily (if you fight close to the enemy base, this will ensure your ultimate will still be up after the fight and you will be able to push).

Pushing:

5-man pushing:

Death Prophet is one of the best heroes for sieging. Simply cast Exorcism and hit the tower so that the spirits focus it. After that, you can keep some distance so that you don’t get initiated on that easily. The spirits will hit their target from a maximum of 1200 range, so you can stay in 800-1000 range from the tower to be as safe as possible, provided you have vision.

Usually, you want to group up with your entire team and push together. That way the enemies will have a very hard time stopping you. If they initiate on you, your defensive items will usually buy you the time to have a high fight impact with your ultimate

Watch for the Exorcism duration on your status bar – your opponents can see it too and they can plan to fight once it ends. You need to back off as soon as the duration is about to end in order to create some distance between yourself and your opponents. 

Split-pushing and farming:

DP is not a great split-pusher. You can use Crypt Swarm to clear creep waves – it has 5 seconds cooldown and you can usually use it all the time if you occasionally bring clarities.

If you’re in a bad position and you can’t push, you can try to slow the game down by out-pushing the lanes. Don’t try to focus a tower on your own, however – in order to do that, you have to commit Exorcism and no one will let you continuously hit the tower alone with Exorcism. It will be a waste and you will most likely die if you get ganked. Instead, simply out-push the waves and save Exorcism for a fight.

Other than split-pushing, you can farm jungle and lanes just as any other hero with an AoE nuke by spamming Crypt Swarm – it’s a pretty good farming ability and compensates to a degree for your low attack speed and damage.

This is usually all you do while Exorcism is on cooldown – out-push the waves and farm the jungle, ideally close to your teammates in case you get ganked or a fight breaks out.

Ganking:

Ganking is very low on your priority list and usually, you want to do it only as a means to force a favorable fight and push afterward. Initiate with Eul’s, cast Silence and Siphon and finish the gank target with your allies. If it’s an important target, use Exorcism and transition the gank into a push right away.

If you’re ganking an enemy very close to your base and your waves are not pushed out (e.g. an enemy split-pusher), don’t use Exorcism because you will not be able to take an objective out of it– just tell your teammates to help secure the kill and save your ult for a real fight or push.