[2.5.8] Soulstealer

[foxmindedguy]

With all the new heroes trickling in and the current ones getting tweaks to better adjust the meta-game. Soulstealer seems to be left behind, almost never being picked in the competitive scene.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying he is a ****-tier hero by any means. He can become very strong and with a decent mana regeneration item, can successfully out-farm any range carry (except for maybe a well-geared Forsaken Archer).

Before I head into why I think the hero is slowly fading to black and not seeing much competitive light, I would like to lay some pros and cons of the hero:

Pros:
- Well landed demon hands can deal up to 900 pre-mitigation magic damage to multiple targets.
- Amazing farmer.
- Last hitting allows him to get up to 60 physical damage.
- Built-in Daemonic Aura.
- Game Changing ultimate that can deal up to 1200 / 1800 / 2400 AOE magic damage, provided SS is in optimal position.

Cons:
- 500 range.
- A carry that needs to get portal key and shrunken head, where as other ranged carries can just opt for offensive items like Shield breaker. Basically too farm dependent to be useful.
- His 2nd and 3rd ability improve his base attacks, while using his 1st and 4th ability take time from his ability to attack (because of long cast-times).
- Has no reliable CC (yes I know ult slows up to 25%, but that is not reliable).
- Has no innate escape ability (this, in conjunction with the above point, makes him highly gank vulnerable).

Basically, while other ranged carries have kits that allow them to deal insane damage and disable the enemy from afar, Soul Stealer is required to be up close and personal. Which forces him into investing in survivability and initiating items first before he could go the carry route.

Other major issue is the cast times on demon hands and Soul Burst. For the ultimate, I can understand why he has such a huge delay. But Demon Hands, restricting his ability to attack for about 3 seconds, if you want to use all three, is huge in a team fight and 1 to 1 exchange.

It is almost as if the hero was designed to be a contradiction between an auto-attacker and a caster (not a hybrid).

Although everything I am saying here might be coming off as exaggeration and "blowing stuff out of proportion", but facts are facts. Soul Stealer is not as safe of a pick as many others in the hero pool. Again this does not mean that the hero is completely bad, he has a lot of potential. It is just a massive grind to get there.

Everything above is just my opinion, however. I just wanted to make this topic and see how other people feel about this hero.

EDIT #1: Forgot to mention him having no escape mechanism in cons.