Dota 2 Item Guide: Silence Some Fools With Orchid Malevolence

We’ve already covered Blade Mail, Eul’s Scepter of Divinity, Abyssal Blade, Manta Style, Spirit Vessel, and Hand of Midas. Today’s topic of discussion is Orchid Malevolence. The item received some changes in the last few updates that made it cheaper but is it still worth it? Get ready for some silence!

Orchid Malevolence – Good Only on Int Heroes?

First, let’s start with a short overview of the item:

• Patchcreated: Patch 6.49
• Total cost: 3475 gold
• Grants: +20 Intelligence, +30 Attack Damage, +25 Attack Speed, +4 Mana Regeneration
• Active: Soul Burn – Silences the target unit for 5 seconds. At the end of the silence, 30% of the damage received while silenced is inflicted as bonus magical damage. (18 seconds cooldown)

Unlike many of the other items we’ve looked into, Orchid Malevolence is quite cheap, costing only 3475 gold. That’s two Oblivion Staffs (2×1500 gold) and a 475 gold recipe. The most expensive component is Quarterstaff, sitting at 875 gold. Now that’s cheap!

Considering the only bonus stat it gives is intelligence you’d think the type of heroes it’s suited for is also intelligence-based ones. That’s not always the case. Getting Orchid on any hero is a great way to ensure a constant flow of mana. Plus the extra attack damage and attack speed will also increase your overall physical DPS.

How To Use Orchid Malevolence

What we’re most interested in is the active – Soul Burn. It applies bonus magic damage after the duration is over. If the debuff gets removed, the target won’t take the damage. If the target becomes spell immune, the damage won’t be applied.

This makes Orchid’s active quite situational and while it greatly increases your solo kill potential, it’s fairly easy to get rid of with teammates around. Here are a couple of countering spells and items that come to mind:

• Black King Bar – removes the debuff
• Glimmer Cape – can reduce the damage by quite a lot
• Lotus Orb – removes the debuff
• Manta Style – removes the debuff
• Eul’s Scepter of Divinity – removes the debuff
• Abaddon’s Aphotic Shield – removes the debuff
• Legion Commander’s Press the Attack – removes the debuff
• Omniknight’s Heavenly Grace – removes the debuff
• Oracle’s Fortune’s End – removes the debuff
• Oracle’s Fate’s Edict – applies 100% magic resistance
• Oracle’s False Promise – removes the debuff

As you can see, Oracle is pretty much a nightmare for any Orchid user. Still, he can’t cast the spells if he’s silenced and doesn’t have an item to dispel it. This makes Orchid useful in teamfights where you don’t want a certain hero to cast spells for 5 seconds. You can completely ignore a Tidehunter or Earthshaker and just silence them. Things change the later the game goes on, though.

As soon as an enemy gets Lotus Orb, they’ll probably save it to dispel Soul Burn from one of their teammates. If there’s a plethora of dispels on the enemy team, going for Orchid might be a bad idea but in the end, it’s still a good tempo item.

Which Heroes Is It Good For?

Getting it early on will allow your Int hero to snowball out of control but you’ll also see the item on other heroes:

In conclusion, Orchid Malevolence has a rather limited timeframe where it’s deadly. The earlier you buy it, the better. Ramp up some kills before your enemies get some sort of dispel if they don’t have it already. Don’t let the dispel discourage you, though, as you can always upgrade it to Bloodthorn for a big DPS increase and true strike on the debuff. But beware – much like Orchid, Bloodthorn’s debuff is just as easily dispelled.

Law graduate from Sofia University turned gaming journalist. Gaming has always been a passion of mine since I was a kid (shocker I know) so it was only a matter of time before I started writing about it. My high-school.

Orchid Malevolence

Orchid Malevolence is an item purchasable at the Base Shop, under Magical. However, it can only be completed with items from the Secret Shop.

Contents

Additional Information [ ]

• The item’s attributes grants the following additional bonuses:
  • 144 mana, 0.6 mana regeneration and 1.2% flat base magic resistance.
  • 12 main attack damage to heroes.
  • 8.4 main attack damage to universal heroes.

  Ability [ ]

  Silences the target unit for 5 seconds. At the end of the silence, 30% of the damage received while silenced is inflicted as bonus magical damage.

  • The damage counter accumulates all damage instances dealt to the Soul Burn target within the last 5 seconds.
    • Damage instances from all damage types the target received are summed up and dealt as another single spell damage instance.
    • Neither accumulate damage flagged as HP Removal or damage sources with the no-reflection flag (e.g. Blade Mail ).
    • The accumulated bonus damage dealt can be avoided if the target becomes invulnerable, or hidden at the end of the duration.
    • Applies the accumulated damage as soon as the debuff expires. Therefore, the debuff being dispelled negates the accumulated damage bonus entirely.
      • Successive casts on the same target refreshes the debuff duration and delays, and increase the accumulated bonus damage value further.
      • The accumulated damage dealt is credited to the last caster of Soul Rend on the affected target.
      • Shares cooldown with Soul Rend .

      Recommended Heroes [ ]

      Heroes who may include an Orchid Malevolence in their build as a core item:

      Heroes who may include an Orchid Malevolence in their build situationally: