This guide is written for Forest of Caldavar play on non-EM modes. It assumes you are playing on the Legion side. If you are playing on Hellbourne, reverse the top/bottom
lanes.
Demented Shaman is a hero that people tend to misplay a lot. He's a pure support--while he has plenty of offensive power, his defensive ability is much stronger. This guide will be solely focused on playing him as he's supposed to be played--a pure support.
A Lack of Place
Interestingly, Demented Shaman doesn't really have a place right now in HoN in terms of synergy. In DotA, Dazzle + Siren was amongst the top 3 strongest lanes in terms of burst damage output due to Healing Wave + Image combo. But there's no image heroes in DotA, which makes it a bit harder to pull off any insane synergies. Regardless, even though he lacks this offensive power in lane, his heal is still ridiculous in team fights.
Role Playing
You are a support, and as such, should act as one. Savage Mace is not for you. Astrolabe is. You have a high mana pool in relation to your skills' mana costs, so you should be the team heal spammer. At most, you should aim for Totem of Kuldra or Frostfield Plate. The only purely offensive items you should ever consider are Shield Breaker or Demonic Breast Plate, and that's only if you're a lot richer than you should be.
Skill Build
1 Healing Wave 1
2 Entangle 1
3 Healing Wave 2
4 Entangle 2
5 Healing Wave 3
6 Entangle 3
7 Healing Wave 4
8 Arcane Hide 1
9 Storm Cloud 1
Pushing Early
10 Storm Cloud 2
11 Storm Cloud 3
12 Arcane Hide 2
13 Arcane Hide 3
14 Arcane Hide 4
15 Stats 1
16 Storm Cloud 4
Not Pushing Early
10 Arcane Hide 2
11 Arcane Hide 3
12 Arcane Hide 4
13 Storm Cloud 1
14 Storm Cloud 2
15 Stats 1
16 Storm Cloud 3
You are presented with a serious conundrum in picking your early skills. That is, Healing Wave is your most powerful skill, and you should level it as primary and get it as high as possible as early as possible. However, Entangle is worthless at low levels, yet you should get at least one level of Arcane Hide "just in case". In the above build, I don't get Hide until 6, but you should vary it according to your lane. If you're expecting a strong lane like Swiftblade/Glacius, it's well-worth getting Hide at LVL1. Otherwise, spamming Healing Wave should be enough to keep you going.
Starting Items
Get a Ring of the Teacher and click it to set it to Heroes Only. It's a good support item that will keep you and your lane mate's mana and armor up. I prefer to go mana regen over HP regen as you have a heal.
Item Build
Enhanced Marchers
Enhanced Marchers offers good movement speed for chasing (you will be doing that a lot) as well as decent damage and armor. You won't need Poste Haste because you won't need to be teleporting anywhere quickly--you can't really clear creeps, and while it's nice to have you there for heal, it's better just to carry Homecoming Stones around.
Codex
I caution GREATLY against getting Codex, but I'm sure people will get it anyway. Codex should only be obtained if you have a damage amp on your team such as Voodoo Jester or Ophelia. Ophelia's Nature's Wrath actually applies bonus damage as physical, which works quite well with Storm Cloud, if you can pull off such an unwieldy skill combo.
Totem of Kuldra
Expensive, but gives you a guaranteed full disable. 90% of the time you should be aiming for this if you have the money.
Frostfield Plate
A good late-game item that makes your mana pool infinite and also increases your survivability ten-fold.
Astrolabe
Your high mana pool makes you ideal for being a double healer.
Talisman of Exile
Can you go wrong with these? No, you cannot.
Healing Wave
With the exceptino of the Shaman-Ophelia combo, Healing Wave cannot be used offensively at-will due to a lack of image heroes. That means it must be used defensively or conditionally when an enemy hero is near a group of allied creeps. The more creeps around him, the more damage it does. Of course this applies also to allied heroes during ganks--if they're surrounding someone, it does huge damage. You always want to keep an eye out for this and heal accordingly. This makes Demented Shaman especially strong on a team of mass melee, even if mass melee is otherwise terribad.
Arcane Hide
During team battles you should always be spamming Healing Wave, as well as keeping an eye out on your carry. Use Arcane Hide only when the hero is in imminent danger of dying--otherwise it's completely wasted. While the hero has Arcane Hide on him, continue healing to help him run.
Storm Cloud
It's a good idea to cast this on as many heroes--allied and enemy--as possible, but in most situations this is not feasible, as the skill is weak to start and gets stronger over time. Rather, you may wish to cast it on your team to initiate a team fight--this way, they go into battle nearly immune to physical damage. Alternatively, you may wish to Storm Cloud a group of enemy heroes on high ground if you have wards placed--if they're good, they'll avoid conflict, which allows you some time to beat on a tower. If they're bad, they'll engage, and you'll win.
Demented Shaman-Ophelia Sexy Combo
If you, for some strange reason, go Demented Shaman bottom solo, or dual-lane bottom with a Ophelia jungle, this is a very strong combo. Ophelia should have two or three creeps. To start off, you should slow the target with Entangle. Ophelia should also slow with Nature's Wrath. She should then maneuver her creeps next to the target-this should be very easy with two slows stacked. The creeps should then use their Q stomps, while you heal the creeps. This is a guaranteed kill, espcially if you have a lane mate who can use a third nuke.
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. First of, skillbuild is way off, second the starting items are horrible and third you shudnt even afford items like sheepstick cos you are ward whoring all game. Did you write it yourself btw? 