Undead Hero: Dreadlord

Undead Hero
DREADLORD

Primary Stat: Strength
"The night beckons." O.k., not the most popular hero. Max Carrion Swarm damage is tough to pull off, Sleep can be interrupted, he has low DPS, and Vampiric Aura only affects melee units. Thus, the Dreadlord does not make it into the pro games very often albeit ever. However! Do not discredit him just yet. He can be a fantastic hero as any in the hands of the right player. He is a situational hero.

The primary advantage of the Dreadlord is (a) his tremendous healing aura on melee units, (b) his powerful CC ability that disrupts a players' flow of movements, and/or (c) a nuke that scales with how many units are in his frontal cone radius, great for large scale battles!

The main thing to know is that the Dreadlord is a Strength hero and a spellcaster, much like the Death Knight. He is not at all like the Tauren Chieftain or the Panda who can sustain quite a few blows before going down. The Dreadlord is rather squishy for a Strength hero. You must micro manage him well. The Hold Position hotkey H is good for the Dreadlord in big fights. The last place you want him is in the middle of a crowd, getting nuked with no where to run. Keep the Dreadlord on the outer areas of your army, where he can be safe while he carefully selects his abilities.

The Dreadlord's abilities are capable of quite a massive amount of damage. The trick is that he requires a bit of timing and positioning to pull it off. Compared to the Lich, the Dreadlord's nuke can inflict much more damage to an army than the Lich's Frost Nova can.

Abilities (Hotkey):

Carrion Swarm (C)
Sends a horde of bats to damage enemies, dealing more damage per unit hit.
Rank 1: 75 damage per unit, maximum of 300 damage
Rank 2: 125 damage per unit, maximum of 600 damage
Rank 3: 200 damage per unit, maximum of 1,000 damage

As you can see by the numbers, a rank 2 Carrion Swarm will kill all casters in it's radius if it hits at least four units. That is better than the Tauren Chieftain's Shockwave ability, which has gotten a reputation as the best caster killing hero ability.

If you are fighting an enemy massing spellcasters (Necromancers, Spirit Walkers, Sorceress / Priests, Druid of the Talon's), consider getting the Dreadlord as a 2nd hero instead of the Lich. Or if you know that the player you are up against likes to use spellcasters, then get the Dreadlord as your first hero! It's always fun to try a new strategy.



Sleep (E)
Puts a target enemy unit to sleep.
Rank 1: 20 seconds (5 seconds to heroes), 100 mana cost
Rank 2: 40 seconds (10 seconds to heroes), 100 mana cost
Rank 3: 60 seconds (15 seconds to heroes), 100 mana cost

Sleep is the illeged 'reason for getting a Dreadlord'. It seems like these trends just catch on, and no one goes for Carrion Swarm anymore. That's not to say that Sleep isn't grossly powerful in the right situation. If a hero is on his own, perhaps to show up at your base to harass you or is running around after creeping, you can cast Sleep on him and get a full hero surround. This will either force him to use his Scroll of Town Portal or it will kill him. Extremely powerful if you catch your enemy off his or her guard.

Unfortuantely, a player can wake up his own unit by ordering one of his units to attack the sleeping unit. It only has to be inflicted a minimum of 1 damage to wake. Not only that, Sleep has a highly diminished effect on enemy heroes.



Vampiric Aura (Passive)
Nearby friendly melee units heal hit points when they damage an enemy unit.
Rank 1: Heals for 15% of attack damage
Rank 2: Heals for 30% of attack damage
Rank 3: Heals for 45% of attack damage

The 'other' Dreadlord spell that you get. Vampiric Aura is great if you are using Ghouls, Skeletons, and/or Abominations. It does not work on any ranged unit! Like most heroes, you either choose the first spell or the second and get the passive ability as your 'other' ability. In this case, you get to choose whether you want a CC spell or an AOE damage spell. You have to get it, whether you benefit from it or not, because you will definitely not have enough mana to use Sleep and Carrion Swarm unless you have an inventory full of mana potions.



Inferno (F) (Ultimate)

The Dreadlord's Ultimate summons a powerful unit to join your army. The infernal is a beast. It can take a huge hunk of damage, and it is immune to magic. It has a passive immolation, so any units near it will slowly die. He hits like a truck, too! Like all Ultimates, it can decide the game in the event you get to level 6 before the enemy player does.

Counters against the Dreadlord: Demon Hunter

Happy reading!
-Kibbles