ExpAT A GLANCE
Strengths
- High mobility: several dashes
- Hard control: Dark Wave (airborne)
Weaknesses
- No protection from crowd control
SKILLS
Demonic Force
knockbackshieldblinkdash
Phoveus' next Basic Attack allows him to charge at the enemy, knocking them back, dealing extra (md) equal to 4% of the enemy's Max HP, and gaining a Shield equal to 8% of his Max Hp. This effect has a 26-14 seconds cooldown (based on Infernal Pursuit level).
Astaros' Gaze: Whenever an enemy hero blink, dashes, or is displaced within 8 units of Phoveus, the cooldown of Demonic Force will be reduced by 20% and the cooldown of his other skills will be reduced by 0.5 second.
Demonic Impact
Cooldown: 6 s
slow
Phoveus slams his monolith into the ground, dealing 200–500 (+120% PA) physical damage to enemies in the area and slowing them by 70% for 0.5 second. If this skills hits an enemy, Phoveus' next Demonic Impact will leave behind an Astaros Eye.
Astaros Eye: Implodes after a short delay, dealing 100–250 (+60% PA) magic damage to the enemies.
Dark Wave
Cooldown: 10 s
airborneknockbackpull
Phoveus drops the stone and releases his demonic power in the target direction, knocking enemies airborne, dragging them along, and dealing 250–500 (+100% extra PA) magic damage.
Infernal Pursuit
leap
Sinner: Demonic Force, Astaros Eye, and Dark Wave can apply Sinner's Mark to the enemy hero hit.
Judgement: Phoveus leaps into the air and smashes down with his monolith at the enemy hero with Sinner's Mark, dealing 250–500 (+100% PA) plus extra equal to 5% of the target's Max HP to enemies in the area while Phoveus recovers 50 plus 6% of his Lost HP.
The HP recovered is reduced by 80% when hitting multiple enemies.
WHO COUNTERS PHOVEUS
Pick them when the enemy has Phoveus · score is their advantage
Esmeralda11.0
She has no blink or dash to refund his cooldowns, casts while moving, and steals the shield he needs to sustain the lane.
Minsitthar10.8
His zone blocks Demonic Force and Infernal Pursuit, so Phoveus stops working exactly when the fight starts.
Bane10.0
He has no dashes to refund Phoveus' cooldowns, and the sharks out-range the chase entirely.
Sun10.0
Clones give him nothing to leap onto and out-duel him in the side lane he has to hold.
Alpha9.9
He grinds them down in the long trade his passive is built for.
WHO PHOVEUS COUNTERS
Pick Phoveus into them
Wanwan12.5
She dashes with every attack, and every one of them triggers his chase.
Ling12.5
Every wall jump and every dash triggers your chase — his mobility becomes a liability.
Harith12.5
Every Chrono Dash feeds his chase — the more Harith dashes the faster he dies.
Freya12.1
Every skill she has moves her, so each one hands him another leap.
Joy11.5
She dashes constantly by design, so every beat of her rhythm feeds your chase.
BEST TEAMMATES
HOW TO PLAY PHOVEUS
Astaros' Gaze turns enemy mobility into your tempo: every blink, dash or displacement near you cuts Demonic Force's cooldown by 20% and your other skills by half a second. Demonic Force, the Astaros Eye left by Demonic Impact and Dark Wave all apply Sinner's Mark, and Infernal Pursuit leaps onto any marked hero — so you can reach targets even if they never dash. Dark Wave knocks enemies airborne and drags them along.
HOW TO PLAY AGAINST PHOVEUS
- No protection from control — a stun before the engage wins the duel.
HIDDEN MECHANICS
What the in-game descriptions do not tell you: crowd-control rules and verified skill quirks. How crowd control works →
Demonic Force- The enhanced basic attack has the range of 4 unit, with the indicator visible to everyone.
- The passive triggers even when the enemies farther than 8 unit dash into any point within 8 unit.
- The enhanced basic attack of Demonic Force can be increased by Malefic Gun and its passive Malefic Energy.
- Teleportation also triggers the passive, such as Luo Yi's Diversion, Moskov's Spear of Destruction or a unit enters Chip's Shortcut. However, the returning of Shortcut and Arrival do not.
- Death resets cooldown of Demonic Force.
Dark Wave- Airborne — high-level control: interrupts most skills, but not skills with control immunity; blocked by control immunity.
- The ability can be repositioned with Flicker during the cast delay.
Infernal Pursuit- This blink duration has control immunity.
- Upon casting the skill, Phoveus will be momentarily untargetable while traveling into the target. The duration scales on how far the target is from Phoveus. The untargetable effect ends the moment Phoveus is just above the target.