Ace on Necrophos’s buff: “No other carry or offlaner has anything like this”

Team Liquid offlaner Marcus “Ace” Hölgard shared tips on playing Necrophos in the third position in Patch 7.41d.
On resource regeneration thanks to Sadist
There are no mana issues. You can spam Death Pulse on every wave, and a single hero kill grants 24 regeneration for eight seconds. And we take the talent at level 10 that increases the duration. No other carry or offlaner has anything like this.
About the starting build
Standard build: three Iron Branches, one Circlet, one Magic Stick, and one Faerie Fire. This provides enough stats to spam Death Pulse, and the Magic Stick helps recover from enemy spells. Faerie Fire is for unexpected use. You can start without the Magic Stick: two Circlets, two Iron Branches, one Tango, and one Faerie Fire—this is a Bracer build for survivability against high-damage lanes. Both options work. Choose based on how threatening your opponents are.
On ability leveling in the early game
As for abilities: first level—Death Pulse. No question about it. That’s it: lane sustain, damage, clearing waves, farming—all in one button. Second level — Heartstopper Aura. The percentage damage starts to wear down the enemy support and offlaner without you having to do anything. Third level—Death Pulse again. At the fourth level, you need to assess the lane: if the enemy deals damage with attacks, such as Naga Siren or Slark, you should take Ghost Shroud. If the enemy is magical or deals low damage, you can first max out Death Pulse and Heartstopper Aura, and take Ghost Shroud later. And level up Reaper's Scythe when the opportunity arises.
About Core Items
You should buy it around the 13th–15th minute. As soon as Radiance is active, Necrophos becomes a different hero. The item pushes waves, kills neutral creeps while stacking bonuses from Sadist, and provides evasion, so the hero takes less physical damage.
After Radiance, get Boots of Travel; you need to move around the map, rotate, fight, and destroy towers. Then you need to get Aghanim’s Shard. This is the hero’s mobility tool. It provides a dash via Death Pulse and allows you to chase or escape using the same button. The rest of the build depends on the game.
Earlier, Ace assessed the changes to Clockwerk that nerfed the hero in update 7.41d. “Although, to be honest, the hero’s core abilities are so good that he’ll still remain quite popular,” Marcus believes.


