Does he devour them one after another? Does he mount them along the halls of an eldritch temple, or pickle the souls in necromantic brine? Is he merely a puppet, pushed through the dimensional rift by a demonic puppeteer? Such is his evil, so intense his aura of darkness, that no rational mind may penetrate it. Of course, if you really want to know where the stolen souls go, there's one sure way to find out: Add your soul to his collection. Or just wait for Nevermore. Shadow Fiend is a carry hero who has one of the most massive right clicking potentials in the entire game, although his active abilities will require good positioning, timing and most importantly, practice to maintain their power through the game. As an agility carry, and a nuker, Shadow Fiend can dish out truly frightening amounts of damage consistently, thanks to the fact that, unlike other extremely high damage agility carries like Phantom Assassin, none of Shadow Fiend's abilities depend on luck. His signature ability, Shadowraze, gives Shadow Fiend the ability to bomb an area of the ground, dealing damage to all units within range, the range potential being up close, middling distance or longer distance; Technically, Shadowraze is in fact 3 abilities in one, as all three distances of it can be used individually without needing to wait for any of the other options to cooldown first - This can make annihilating fragile heroes in the early and mid game very easy if the positioning and timing is correct, while it also allows him to be one of the best creep killers in the game, making him excell in pushes, as well as farming with large snowballing potential. With higher levels (Preferrably whenever Shadowraze is maximized), he can act as a solid jungler as well. His second ability, Necromastery, is the ability that sets his right clicking prowess into motion - Allowing him to absorb the souls of any enemy he last hits (Including Heroes, in which case he will receive multiple souls) and receive bonus damage (+2 for each soul) for it, being able to hold up to 36 souls. This ability synergizes with his ultimate, Requiem of Souls, which will release all his souls into a wave of energy. He does not, however, lose the souls he has gained by activating it; He will only lose souls by dying, at which occasions he will automatically do a half powered Requiem, allowing to give one last attack, potentially getting revenge on the enemy as soon as he dies.
Requiem of Souls requires very good positioning to work efficiently, as the waves of energy will quickly spread out along with their damage, making the attack very situational, benefiting immensely from stuns provided by your teammates or items that allow you to sneakily or quickly put yourself in appropriate positions such as a Blink Dagger and Shadow Blade. If used appropriately however, Requiem of Souls is one of the single most damaging attacks in the entire game, being able to deal up to 2880(2160 after reductions with standard 25% Magic resistance) points of damage, more than enough to immediately kill the vast majority of heroes even at their highest level unless they have a lot of built in strength coupled with health/strength busting items. To make it even more dangerous, is that all units touched by the souls will receive a 5 second long 25% reduction to movement speed and 50% reduction to attack damage, an aspect of it that goes through spell immunity. His final skill, Presence of the Dark Lord, makes his right-clicking potential even larger, providing a debuff to near enemies by reducing their armor, which is stackable with other armor debuffs. This also means he is a great companion for any physical hero to team up with, as his mere presence will off-handedly increase their power. Shadow Fiend is very fragile through the early stages of the game, he has average movement speed and no innate escape mechanism whatsoever, making him a very easy target for ganks, which means that map awareness and the ability to know when to retreat or play conservatively is essential for survival, and is highly recommended to stick with teammates often to reduce the chances of being ganked. However, Shadow Fiend is also a very versatile hero who benefits greatly from a wide variety of items, so with a good enough item build, he can become a decent solo, although caution and especially map awareness are still advised. Shadow Fiend is a semi-hard carry - Meaning he can obtain substantial power from his abilities, but ultimately it will be the items that will make him a force to be reckoned with - Without strong items and his necromastery he has poor right-click power, but he can very easily flip this by collecting souls and obtaining items that increase both his attack speed and damage. In addition to this, being a ranged hero, items such as the Eye of Skadi can create escape mechanisms for him by allowing to slow enemies from a distance and flee to safety if need be, or simply make it easier to catch up to fleeing heroes, the former possibility of which in turn means slow melee heroes with no ranged abilities will have a very difficult time with him. Additionally, lifestealing can be bought and used along items that increase his attack speed, granting potentially very strong survivality. All In all, Shadow Fiend is a character that is easy to learn, but difficult to master - His innate survivability is low, and survivability is crucial to maintain his power to the fullest without needing constant farm, but on the hands of the right players, he will easily be among the most impacting heroes in whatever game he is in.
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