so i think i learned how to win low rank dota as a core. your teammates are going to buy damage items all game and maybe one defensive item if you're lucky. your enemies are going to buy invisibility because it's like having a wild assault or drive rush or something that can also evade most attacks. you just need to figure out what the most efficient way to spend 4-5000 gold on offense is (probably either scepter or some combo of cheap attacking+debuffing items), build that, build a couple defensive items, and then buy a gem of true sight so you can stuff their invisible approaches. then you pray that your teammates actually believe you when you say they can follow you and win the game. if they just keep running around feeding then you were going to lose anyway. you can't solo 5 people even if none of them buy bkb. well, maybe meepo can. not really sure.
anyway, death prophet is a hero who doesn't need shit. she farms with spells, she fights with spells, she's got a built in silence, and she hits towers with spells. shiva's guard is the best enabler she can get...and it's a defensive item! the best item in the game this patch, probably. you get a ton of armor, a few stats, and a giant aoe debuff that reduces enemy healing and move speed and magic resistance. it used to not do that last part, but they decided to change it this patch so it builds off of veil of discord, which used to have the aoe magic resistance debuff. the item costs more total and gives a lot less mana and intelligence hero damage than it used to, but it's incredibly offset by the extra effect, having some hp and the fact that now every single item you buy as part of it gives you huge value instead of having to save up 3000 gold at once for the stupid staff. so then you can build into a magic resistance item for yourself, or skip it if you don't need it and go straight for hp. your goal is to stand in fights as long as possible and cast spells forever and ever. anything that prevents you from dying is better than anything that gives you slightly more damage. and you already bought the item that gives you both.
death prophet's current concept is a bit of hp bouncing like huskar. you kinda want people to go on you because you're hard to kill and can start stealing their life; if it's been a bit since the last fight you can cast 4 or even 5 of these in a row (with shard), and if you hit a few people around you they'll all lose tons while seemingly not damaging you. i actually used to hate using this move (spirit siphon), it feels weird and if you're truly alone people will run away and kill you once it runs out. but it's really powerful and after these two games i'm really into it. (it used to be a passive that enhanced the other spells). she casts a silence which affects a wide area and slows the enemies, helping you to keep your siphons on and ruining their fighting power, and then can also just shoot a moderately sized and far-reaching aoe spell to deal straight up magical damage. and her ult shoots out a bunch of ghosts like the starcraft carriers, except they're untargetable. they attack things automatically near you, dealing lots of damage and chewing through buildings. at the end you gain back life based on the damage they dealt. her scepter lets you generate these ghosts constantly (they get made automatically when you attack enemies or hit them with spells), but they only attack once before returning. that's awesome in theory and i want to make it sometime...but it's kind of hard to justify an item that doesn't help you live through burst unless you're having an absurdly good game. because this is another hero where you win by casting your spells and virtually the only limitation on that is being alive.
the super good defensive item a lot of heroes don't buy these days but she loves is eul's scepter. eul was a designer of really old dota maps and i love that they never had to change the name (unlike some other items). it cyclones you in the air, which is awesome when you just want to not get hit for a few seconds. say, because you're stealing life, or getting shot at, or something. or you can use it on enemies so they can't run away or shoot you. it also upgrades into "wind waker", which i think is the most expensive item in the game. it lets you use it on allies or fly on the tornado when you use it on yourself. i didn't buy it in the first game, which i lost, and then when i did buy it i won. it's not a coincidence. (but i really did do all i could in that first one)
i think this hero is a sleeper pick in general, and really good right now. it's not got the appeal of obvious carries where you click on someone and they die, nor that of the true tanks where you pick apart the team with powerful abilities while taking almost no damage. this leads to you inevitably relying on your team to fight with you, which is frustrating when people won't do that. but this is one of the best heroes to win on, by far. at least for me. i love buying tank items. i love casting spells and destroying buildings. i love ghosts. and ellen mclain. i haven't played this hero in a long time and it's like meeting an old friend again. dota has changed a lot, but she's still here for me.