Phantom Assassin Dota 2 Overview
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If you’re newer to Dota 2, before we jump into the Phantom Assassin build and counters, it is worth providing an introduction to the hero. She is an agility hero, with a melee attack type and is regarded as having a lower complexity level. Phantom Assassin “blinks onto her foes with critical strikes” and falls into the role of the hard carry. Being able to play as the carry allows her to collect the necessary items and then provide a lot of impact in the game. Ultimately, it can be the make or break role for a team in some games. In a less common use case, Phantom Assassin can also be used in the midlane or as a roamer.
Phantom Assassin Abilities Dota 2
Below you can find the full breakdown of the four abilities she has.
- Stifling Dagger – Throws a dagger slowing the enemy unit’s movement speed, deadline 65+25% of Phantom Assassin’s attack damage as physical damage and applying attack effect from items and abilities.
- Phantom Strike – Teleports to a unit, friendly or enemy, and grants bonus attack speed while attacking if it’s an enemy unit.
- Blur – Phantom Assassin focuses inward, increasing her ability to evade enemy attacks. Can be activated to blur her body, causing her to be impossible to see until near enemy heroes. Stacks diminishingly with other sources of Evasion.
- Coup de Grace – Phantom Assassin refines her combat abilities, gaining a chance of delivering a devastating critical strike to enemy units Stifling Dagger shares the same critical strike chance.
The above are the base abilities she has as a hero in Dota 2. There are also two additional abilities that can be obtained and used.
- Aghanim’s Shard
- Fan of Knives (Shard Grants New Ability) – Phantom Assassin releases sharp blades around her in a 550 AoE, dealing 16% of a victim’s max health on impact and applying break for 3 seconds.
- Aghanim’s Scepter
- Blur (Scepter Ability Updated) – Causes Blur to have instant cast time and applies a dispel. Anytime Phantom Assassin gets a hero kill, her abilities are refreshed. Reduces Blur cooldown and increases Fade Time to 0.75.
Phantom Assassin Build Guide 2024 Updated
One of the biggest aspects of playing Dota 2 is knowing what items you should be purchasing in order to put yourself in the best position in the game, and help your team push for the win. There are a wide variety of builds that exist for Phantom Assassin, with some of the changes coming down purely to personal preference or a specific team composition. Below you can find the recommended items for her throughout each stage of the game.
- Starting Items:
- Tango
- Healing Salve
- Iron Branches
- Early Game:
- Quelling Blade
- Boots of Speed
- Magic Wand
- Mid Game:
- Power Treads
- Battle Fury
- Desolator
- Black King Bar
- Late Game:
- Abyssal Blade
- Satanic
On top of this, there are some situational items that you need to be aware of.
- ‘Mask of Madness’ which gives high attack speed and a source of lifesteal.
- ‘Butterfly’ which greatly boosts her damage output, as well as providing additional evasion.
- ‘Assault Cuirass’ which greatly increases Phantom Assassin’s damage output through more attack speed as well as the enemy armor reduction aura.
- ‘Nullifier’ will give a damage boost adnd the active ability that disciplines the enemy and mutes them, as well as greatly slowing them for a long duration.
- ‘Monkey King Bar’ will counter enemy evasions and boost her damage output with increased attack damage.
- ‘Sange and Yasha’ is a situationally powerful mid-game item that is easy to farm and allows Phantom Assassin to begin participating in team fights earlier.
- ‘Eye of Skadi’ can boost her combat effectiveness.
The above covers what you need to know about the phantom assassin build to get you started. After you get used to this build, it is recommended to start looking at alternative builds on Gosu, which will help to provide further understanding on how to build for different team compositions. Also, please note the talent tree for Mortred below.
How To Counter Phantom Assassin
Finally, let’s dive into how you can counter Mortred the Phantom Assasin. As usual in Dota 2, there are heroes that Phantom Assassin is better against, and those that she will be worse against. Below you can find the list of Heroes that can be effective at countering Phantom Assassin.
- Ax
- Bane
- Broodmother
- Centaur Warrunner
- Dragon Knight
- Lina
- Lion
- Morphling
- Omniknight
- Phoenix
- Puck
- Razor
- Skywrath Mage
- Specter
- Timbersaw
- Tinker
- Troll Warlord
- Viper
- Underlord
- Hoodwink
While picking the correct hero is obviously a key factor, the selection of build items is what can actually play the biggest part in being able to more strongly counter her. See the full list of recommended items to counter below and the explanation of how they can counter.
- ‘Monkey King Bar’ as it grants accuracy to counter Blur.
- ‘Maelstrom’ and ‘Mjollnir’s Chain Lightning’ can pierce through Blur.
- ‘Blade Mail’ turns Phantom Assassin’s huge burst damage against her, which dissuades her from attacking.
- ‘Bloodthorn’ will make her a more vulnerable target due to its accuracy, damage application, and critical strikes. Also, the silence stops her from initiating effectively, and she will be unable to use her Stifling Dagger and Phantom Strike.
- ‘Scythe of Vyse’ will completely remove her chances of escape. Hex will also disable item usage, so even if the Phantom Assassin build has included ‘Black King Bar’, and if Hex has been applied before she can activate, she risks falling down even easier.
- ‘Silver Edge’ breaks Blue and Coup de Grace, which cripples her damage and chance of survival considerably.
- ‘Ghost Scepter’ can prevent Mortred from attacking, so it acts as a good protection item for casters.
- ‘Glimmer Cape’ has the offering to be used to save targets hit by her criticals. However, be aware that this isn’t advised if your team has involved heroes as enemies already.
- ‘Solar Crest’ doesn’t just melt the armor she has, it will also reduce attack speed from Phantom Strike
- Finally, ‘Heaven’s Halberd’ can disarm Phantom Assassin, preventing her from using Coup de Grace. Additionally, the evasion provides reliable protection against her physical attacks.
So, that is everything you need to know about creating an effective Phantom Assassin build in Dota 2, and also providing multiple options to counter the hero.
- Blog
- January 25, 2022 / Updated: 25 Mar 2024