Queen of Pain

Queen of Pain

The Dire

16 + 1.7 18 + 2 24 + 2.5

Level 1 16 25 Hit Points 454 967 1594 Mana 312 819 1352 Damage 49-57 88-96 129-137 Armor 1.52 6 11.04 Attacks / Second 0.69 0.88 1.09

Movement Speed 300 Turn Rate 0.5 Sight Range 1800/800 Attack Range 550 Missile Speed 1500 Attack Duration 0.56+0.41 Cast Duration 0.452+1.008 Base Attack Time 1.7

Akasha the Queen of Pain is a ranged intelligence hero who uses her abilities to close in and deal huge area damage to the enemy. She is typically played as a ganker with her ability to appear in battle and deal damage in quick succession, as well as hunt down fleeing heroes with ease. Akasha is very adept at getting kills early in the game, and transitions very well into a semi-carry if she acquires the proper items.

Bio

Akasha, the Queen of Pain Play "There will be pain; there will be screaming." Role: Nuker / Escape / Carry Lore: The Ecclesiast-King of Elze nursed a desire for pain—forbidden pain. In a less prominent political figure, such desires might be considered unwise, but in a monarch of his stature, to satisfy such thirsts would have threatened the virtue of the Divine Throne itself. Therefore he turned to his dungeon full of demonologists, promising freedom to whoever could summon a personal succubus of torment and bind it entirely to his service. The creature who arrived, Akasha by name, visited upon him such exquisite torments that he named her his Secret Queen, and he began to spend all his spare moments submitting to her clever torments—eventually abdicating all his responsibilities in his pursuit of the painful pleasures that only she could bring. Queen of Pain could bring him to the brink of death, but she was rune-bound to keep him alive. At last the King's neglect of state brought on an uprising. He was dragged from his chamber and hurled from the Tower of Invocations, and at the moment of death, Queen of Pain was let loose into the world, freed from servitude—freed to visit her sufferings on anyone she deigned to notice. Voice: Linda K. Morris (Responses)

Abilities

Shadow Strike Q D Ability Affects Damage Target Unit Enemies Magical Hurls a poisoned dagger which deals large initial damage, and then deals damage over time. The poisoned unit has its movement speed slowed for 15 seconds. An instance of damage is dealt every 3 seconds. Range: 400 Duration: 15.1 Seconds Movement Slow: 20%/30%/40%/50% Damage over Time: 30/40/50/60 Damage: 50/75/100/125 20/16/12/8 80/100/120/140 Akasha's envenomed dagger allows her to delight in the drawn out suffering of her victims.

Notes: Damage over time is dealt to the affected units every 3 seconds during 15 seconds. Affected units slowly regain their original movement speed every second during the 15 seconds. Units afflicted by Shadow Strike can be denied by their allies when their HP drops below 25% of their maximum health. Deals a total of 200/275/350/425 damage.

Blink W B Ability Affects Target Point Self Short distance teleportation that allows Queen of Pain to move in and out of combat. Range: 700/850/1000/1150 12/10/8/6 60 The Secret Queen lives up to her title, making her pain impossible to escape.

Notes: You can use Blink to dodge incoming projectiles. Blink has a 0.33 seconds teleportation delay. Blink has a minimum range of 200.

Scream of Pain E F Ability Affects Damage No Target Enemies Magical The Queen of Pain lets loose a piercing scream around her, damaging nearby enemies. Radius: 475 Damage: 85/165/225/300 7 110/120/130/140 The sultry voice of Akasha beckons her opponents while stealing their souls.

Notes: Has an instant cast time. Can hit invisible units. Can hit units inside fog of war.

Sonic Wave R W Ability Affects Damage Target Point Enemies Magical Creates a gigantic wave of sound in front of Queen of Pain, dealing heavy damage to all enemy units in its wake. Range: 700 Radius: 100 (Starting Radius) / 800 (Distance) / 300 (Final Radius) Damage: 350/475/600 (350/530/725*) 135 (100/70/40*) 250/360/500 Reduces cooldown and increases damage. Her most exquisite of all of torments, Akasha's Sonic Wave puts her poor foes out of their misery.

Notes: Can hit units up to 1200 range away.

Recommended items

Explanation: Core items include Power Treads, Bottle, and Magic Wand. An important thing to note about Power Treads is how efficient QoP can push with tread switching and a Bottle. From there, a number of items are useful on her. Scythe of Vyse or Orchid Malevolence gives QoP a disable, which her abilities lack, Aghanim's Scepter gives your ultimate more utility and provides tankiness, or Black King Bar allows QoP to utilize her utility in teamfights against a multitude of disables. Scythe of Vyse is the best single-target disable in the game, provides a large increase in damage, thanks to the intelligence, provides a little bit of tankiness, and helps to solve QoP's mana problems. It's an all around amazing pick. Pick it up over an Orchid when you need to shut down an enemy carry. Orchid Malevolence provides a strong disable, is one of the best DPS items for an intelligence hero, and is also a good fix for QoP's mana issues. Pick it up over a Scythe when you want to gank early and shut down a hero with escapes (Anti-Mage, Phantom Lancer, for example) or you want to shut down casters. The Aghanim's Scepter is also an important item late game as it allows you to use your ultimate much more frequently at level 3 (from 135 cooldown to 40 means using it more than three times as often is possible). The bonus damage is nice primarily in that it means that at level 3 you one-shot melee creeps instead of leaving them at red health requiring a scream of pain or normal attack to finish. However, against teams likely to build multiple BKBs, this item loses its potency in teamfights. Monkey King Bar or Desolator pickups allow you to provide a bit more right-click damage in fights, which is an option if the enemy team has many heroes that can become magic immune or have many heroes that have abilities or items that increase magic resistance. Monkey King Bar also gives QoP an unreliable way to cancel channels or TPs. Both, however, are not items that should be rushed immediately. Eye of Skadi is a luxury pick that gives you something of everything. The orb effect provides a bit more utility and pierces BKB and the stats provide a massive amount of tankiness and a decent increase in DPS. Unmentioned Items: Black King Bar is crucial for most games, as the ability to move around fights untouched by disables is crucial to Queen of Pain's damage output. Additionally, her low HP means immunity from magic damage is appreciated. Ethereal Blade is an easy extension from a defensive ghost scepter, providing significant attack speed and armor from agility as well as an active which can remove an enemy carry from a fight for 2.5s, as well as greatly increase the damage of her combo. Dagon puts her burst potential over the full HP of most heroes before the 20 minute mark, allowing her to roam and snowball heavily.

Tips

• Queen of Pain's combinations must be executed with extreme speed to be successful, as her two main damaging skills are area-of-effect and consequently can be avoided with a quick reaction. A typical combo is to Blink, Scream of Pain, Shadow Strike, and if necessary, Sonic Wave to finish the job. If the enemy flees however, you can kill them simply by blinking ahead of them and continuing to use Scream of Pain.
• Note however that because her two main damaging spells are area-of-effect, they should be positioned to affect as many enemies as possible. For this reason, it is best to save Sonic Wave until such time as you can hit multiple enemy heroes with it.
• Faceless Void's Chronosphere and Enigma's Black Hole work extremely well for setting up a Sonic Wave for maximum targets.
• Akasha is superb at chasing her prey, but is very delicate and is often in more danger from enemy towers than enemy heroes. Gearing for HP regeneration may be advisable, as in a critical situation you can Blink to an inaccessible place and wait to recuperate. Bottle will also help with this.
• If being chased (a common situation for Akasha), an often-useful tactic is to blink behind the enemies pursuing you. They will typically assume you blinked ahead and continue on in that direction, allowing for an escape.
• In a late-game encounter, Akasha is best used by hiding until such time as the enemies' more powerful spells are on cooldown, allowing her to Blink in and inflict huge damage on multiple enemies owing to her AoE capabilities without putting her at risk of being killed by powerful spells.
• A more cautious strategy is to run in without using Blink, saving it for a potential escape. This may be necessary against high-damage enemy heroes, as Akasha is very frail and in encounters should try to avoid being attacked at all.
• Similarly to Lina, Akasha has very high burst damage capabilities, but is delicate and not suited to long encounters because of her spells' high mana costs. This can be remedied with items such as Bloodstone and Linken's Sphere, as well as scepter to reduce Sonic Wave's cooldown.
• Be aware that spells such as Rupture and Mana Leak will be calculated against the distance traversed should you Blink when they are applied to you.

Trivia

• Akasha is the name (or variant of the name) of the fifth element in many religions such as Hinduism, Wicca (or other Neopaganism), with its roots deriving from ancient Paganism. "Akasha", when translated to English (from Sanskrit), means "aether" (air/spirit, depending on context). This element is seen/represented as the top point of a pentagram, a symbol sometimes misused as one of evil (there is no devil-esque figure in Paganism), and could have been intended to show or derive from Queen of Pain's sadistic nature. Doom's Doom skill icon is a regular pentagram, so it might be a misconception held by the DotA staff and reasoning for her name. A regular pentagram on someone, ignoring misconceptions, is actually protective.
  • The name Aether is one of the many references Dota 2 makes to Greek mythology, as it is derived from a Greek deity of the same name.
  • Akasha is also the name of the Queen of the Dead from Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles novel series, which could have inspired Queen of Pain's name, who, in turn, could have derived her name from the above roots.

Update history

February 14, 2013 Patch

• Fixed some wave speed issues with Crypt Swarm, Dual Breath, Breathe Fire, Dragon Slave, Illuminate, Sonic Wave and Shockwave.

June 20, 2012 Patch

• Updated Aghanim's Scepter tooltips for Beastmaster, Necrolyte, Queen of Pain, Warlock, and Windrunner.

April 26, 2012 Patch

• [Undocumented] Updated the hero selection portrait.

March 22, 2012 Patch

• Fixed being able to dispell Shadow Strike.

March 08, 2012 Patch

• Updated Queen of Pain's portrait.

December 02, 2011 Patch

• Fixed bug in Queen of Pain's particle effect.

November 03, 2011 Patch

• Fixed Sonic Wave not being targetable on units directly

October 27, 2011 Patch

• Fixed bug in Shadow Strike slow falloff.
• Fixed Scream of Pain not hitting units in fog of war
• Fixed Shadow Strike not being castable on regular units
• Fixed Scream of Pain not hitting invisible units.
• Fixed Shadow Strike not allowing you to deny heroes.
• Enabled Broodmother, Skeleton King and Queen of Pain in Captain's Mode.
• Updated Queen of Pain's base attack to better match her color scheme.
• Updated shadow strike.

October 20, 2011 Patch

• Added Broodmother, Queen of Pain and Skeleton King!

June 17, 2011 Patch

• Made Furion's Teleport, Blink Dagger, Antimage's Blink, and Queen of Pain's Blink not allow target locations that have never been FoW revealed.

May 13, 2011 Patch

• Fixed a number of abilities having incorrect interaction with Sphere: Slithereen Crush, Jinada, Wind Walk, Echo Slam, Moon Glaive, Death Pulse, Purification, Scream of Pain, Fatal Bonds.

February 19, 2011 Patch

• Fixed Sonic Wave travel distance.

Balance changelog

6.74

• Shadow Strike initial damage increased from 50/70/70/100 to 50/75/100/125.

6.73

• Base damage increased by 4.
• Scream of Pain AoE increased from 400/425/450/475 to 475.

6.72

• Sonic Wave damage rescaled from 290/430/600 to 350/475/600.

6.71

• Shadow Strike duration damage rescaled from 15/30/45/60 to 30/40/50/60.

Gallery

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  Splash artwork

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  Concept art

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  Concept art

See also

• Queen of Pain responses