Phantom Assassin

Phantom Assassin

The Dire

20 + 1.85 23 + 3.15 13 + 1

Level 1 16 25 Hit Points 530 1081 1746 Mana 169 390 741 Damage 46-48 95-97 141-143 Armor 4.22 11.08 17.52 Attacks / Second 0.72 1.01 1.28

Movement Speed 310 Turn Rate 0.4 Sight Range 1800/800 Attack Range Melee Missile Speed Instant Attack Duration 0.3+0.7 Cast Duration 0.3+0.5 Base Attack Time 1.7

Mortred the Phantom Assassin is a melee agility Hero fitting the role of hard carry. Mortred is best-known, and infamous for, her ability to inflict staggering damage with single strikes. Her abilities synergise supremely well with each other, rendering her an extremely formidable foe once she has acquired the items she requires. She is a very farm-dependent melee Hero, but she farms creeps with much more ease than many of her fellow carries, using her Stifling Dagger for last hitting. Besides eliminating the weakness most melee Heroes have in their farming, it also saves her from expending gold on important melee carry items like Quelling Blade. Her second ability, Phantom Strike, acts as both her escape and initiate, while Blur gives her an edge against other Heroes that depend on their physical attacks by evading them; giving her partial damage immunity to many carries. Her ultimate however is what connects Mortred with four-digit integers.

Bio

Mortred, the Phantom Assassin Play "Death at my hands is an honor." Role: Carry / Escape Lore: Through a process of divination, children are selected for upbringing by the Sisters of the Veil, an order that considers assassination a sacred part of the natural order. The Veiled Sisters identify targets through meditation and oracular utterances. They accept no contracts, and never seem to pursue targets for political or mercenary reasons. Their killings bear no relation to any recognizable agenda, and can seem to be completely random: A figure of great power is no more likely to be eliminated than a peasant or a well digger. Whatever pattern the killings may contain, it is known only to them. They treat their victims as sacrifices, and death at their hand is considered an honor. Raised with no identity except that of their order, any Phantom Assassin can take the place of any other; their number is not known. Perhaps there are many, perhaps there are few. Nothing is known of what lies under the Phantom Veil. Except that this one, from time to time, when none are near enough to hear, is known to stir her veils with the forbidden whisper of her own name: Mortred. Voice: Gin Hammond (Responses)

Abilities

Stifling Dagger Q D Ability Affects Damage Target Unit Enemy Unit Pure Deals minor pure damage and slows the enemy unit's movement speed. Deals half damage to heroes. Range: 1200 Duration: 1/2/3/4 Damage: 50/100/150/200 Movement Slow: 50% 8 30/25/20/15 Blocked when the projectile hits. The first skill learned by the Sisters of the Veil often signals an incoming hit.

Notes: The projectile can't be dodged by blinking.

Phantom Strike W B Ability Affects Target Unit Units Teleports to a unit, friendly or enemy, and grants bonus attack speed while attacking if it's an enemy unit. Range: 1000 Duration: 3 Maximum Number of Attacks: 4 Bonus Attack Speed: 100 14/11/8/5 50 Mortred's silken veil is the last thing her unfortunate target sees.

Notes: The attack speed bonus only lasts as long as you target the Phantom Strike victim. The first attack is delivered instantly upon landing.

Blur E R Ability Affects Passive Self The Phantom Assassin becomes hard to see by blurring her body and disappearing from the enemy minimap when near enemy heroes. Some enemy attacks miss. Bonus Evasion: 20% / 25% / 30% / 40% Radius: 1600 Meditation allows a Veiled Sister to carefully anticipate her opponents in combat.

Notes: Not triggered by invisible enemy Heroes. It is, however, triggered by enemies out of sight, e.g. behind trees. Has a 1.5 second delay before the blurring effect is applied or removed. The bonus evasion does not depend on the proximity of an enemy hero; only the blurring effect does. The bonus evasion does not stack with evasion from items (Talisman of Evasion, Butterfly, or Heaven's Halberd).

Coup de Grâce R C Ability Affects Passive Enemies Phantom Assassin refines her combat abilities, gaining a chance of delivering a devastating critical strike to enemy units. Critical Chance: 15% Critical Damage: 250% / 350% / 450% Red critical numbers are before illusion and armor reduction. A divine strike, Mortred honors her opponent by choosing them for death.

Recommended items

Explanation: Starting: A Salve and Tangoes provide early regen to stay in lane and continue farming Iron Branches give very cost-effective stats and build into a Magic Wand The Stout Shield helps reduce harass damage taken from enemy heroes Early: Boots of Speed are crucial for every hero, to chase or escape from enemies Upgrading your Stout Shield into a Poor Man's Shield guarantees it will block damage from enemy heroes and additionally provides some agility The Magic Wand gives you burst HP/Mana healing based on the number of abilities your enemies use, as well as compressing the Iron Branches to free space in your inventory A Perseverance is needed for your Battle Fury, and helps your survivability with increased regeneration Core: Phase Boots give Phantom Assassin the most base damage of any boots, synergizing well with her Ultimate, as well as an active ability for increased movement speed and the ability to pass through units, allowing her easier chase to get in range for Blink Strike. Battle Fury heaps on plenty of raw damage, extra regen, and with the cleave, your Coup de Grace hits will strike everyone around the target for large amounts of damage. A Black King Bar gives you much needed magic immunity, allowing you to ignore most nukes, stuns, slows, and disables, giving you more time to cut down the enemy heroes Situational: Satanic, combined with your huge damage potential, gives you tons of survivability. A crit for an even 1000 damage will heal you for 250, and for 2000 if you use Satanic's active effect. Abyssal Blade gives you a chance to stun opponents on attack, as well as an active stun that bypasses an opponent's Black King Bar, and the most raw damage of any item in the game except a Divine Rapier Vladmir's Offering grants you an aura that increases damage, armor, and mana regeneration, as well as giving you a decent lifesteal aura, allowing you to use another Unique Attack Modifier like a Desolator Monkey King Bar gives you extra damage, extra attack speed, and true strike, letting you ignore enemy heroes' evasion chances, as well as a chance to ministun on attacks Assault Cuirass greatly increases your defenses, while boosting your attack speed for more chances to critical hit, and lowering enemies' armor, increasing your regular attacks' damage.

Tips

• Stifling Dagger has multiple uses. It should generally be the first skill maxed, as it allows you to last hit creeps even if they are far from you and later on allows you to slow enemies at a great range.
  • Avoid using Stifling Dagger as a harass tool in the laning phase before level 5, as you'll be losing a good amount of CS and it won't deal enough damage to ward off your enemy. However, you should use it on enemy heroes when they back up and attempt to use non-combat items such as Clarity and Healing Salve.
  • Depending on your team's strategy, Phantom Strike can be taken at level 1 as the increased DPS combined with allied disables can secure First Blood.
• Phantom Strike can target allies and enemies. Jumping to a friendly unit can be useful if Mortred needs to escape.
• Leveling Blur is usually not recommended early on. However, a single point can be very helpful if your lane opponents are primarily harassing you with basic attacks, or orb-walking.
• There is a temptation among unseasoned players to focus on the maximisation of attack damage, neglecting attack speed. However, focusing on attack speed generally produces more favourable results; her critical damage is gigantic even with low attack damage and high attack speed means she is much more likely to kill her target, as opposed to relying on huge-but-infrequent criticals. In essence, the faster her attack speed; the less likely you will fail to kill a target because of lack of luck; and three Coups de Graces with average base attack are much stronger than a single one with high base attack.
• Be very wary of enemies using Blade Mail, as Mortred's damage output is many times greater than her health pool.

Trivia

• Mortred is derived from Mordred, a character in the Arthurian legend who betrayed and fought King Arthur at the Battle of Camalann.
• "Coup de grâce" is a French term (that bled into English) which literally means "blow of mercy", and refers to the killing blow of a wounded person or animal, friendly or not, to end their suffering.
• Phantom Assassin, along with Troll Warlord, has the lowest intelligence growth in the game (+1 per level).

Update history

November 30, 2012 Patch

• Pseudo Random chances are now enabled for these abilities:
  • Phantom Assassin's Coup de Grâce
  • Slardar's Bash
  • Faceless Void's Time Lock
  • Brewmaster's Drunken Brawler's critical strike
  • Sniper's Headshot
  • Juggernaut's Blade Dance
  • Chaos Knight's Chaos Strike
  • Lycanthrope's Shapeshift's critical strike
  • Skeleton King's Critical Strike

July 26, 2012 Patch

• [Undocumented] Updated Phantom Assassin's minimap icon to reflect her updated model.

June 14, 2012 Patch

• Added Chaos Knight, Phantom Assassin and Gyrocopter to Captain's Mode
• Fixed Phantom Strike. landing position.
• Fixed Coup de Grace visual effect to play only when the critical strike attack lands.
• Fixed Coup de Grace working on denies and wards.
• Fixed Phantom Strike facing direction after landing.
• Fixed Blur showing hero name on minimap when it should be hidden.
• Fixed Blink Strike not being blocked by Linken's Sphere.
• Phantom Strike now shows you a buff icon while you are attacking fast.
• Fixed Stifling Dagger being dodgeable.
• Fixed Phantom Strike visual and sound effect sometimes playing on targets it can't hit.
• Fixed Phantom Strike attacks sometimes being delayed.
• [Undocumented] Updated Phantom Assassin's hero icon to reflect her texture changes.

June 11, 2012 Patch

• Added Chaos Knight, Phantom Assassin, and Gyrocopter!

January 26, 2012 Patch

• Fixed players being able to play as Gyrocopter, Bane, Lanaya and Phantom Assassin.

Balance changelog

6.78

• Blur level 4 evasion increased from 35% to 40%.

6.75

• Coup de Grace critical strike multiplier increased from 2.5/3.25/4 to 2.5/3.5/4.5.

6.74

• Phantom Strike cast range increased from 700/800/900/1000 to 1000.
• Phantom Strike cooldown rescaled from 20/15/10/5 to 14/11/8/5.

6.73

• Stifling Dagger damage increased from 40/80/120/160 to 50/100/150/200.

6.71

• Coup de Grace critical strike rescaled from 2/3/4 to 2.5/3.25/4x.
• Reworked Blur fade mechanism :

Blur:

Note: Your hero is no longer always fully faded out. It now only gains partial transparency when the new secondary effect below is active. This still retains the permanent 20/25/30/35% evasion.

Passively blurs your hero when near enemy heroes, causing your model to fade out partially and become hidden on the minimap to enemy player.

Distance: 1600

Has a 1.5 second delay when adding or removing the effect.

6.70

• Blur evasion increased from 15/20/25/30% to 20/25/30/35%.

6.69

• Base Strength increased from 17 to 20.
• Strength growth decreased from 2.05 to 1.85.
• Phantom Strike cooldown from 30/20/10/5 to 20/15/10/5.

6.63

• Stifling Dagger cooldown reduced from 10 to 8 seconds.

6.60

• Changed Blink Strike to a new ability .

6.55

• Tweaked Blur evasion chance per level.

6.54

• Blur visual effect is now applied only to enemies.

6.53

• Improved Stifling Dagger.

6.51

• Replaced Phantom Assassin's Shadow Strike with a different similar ability.
• Lowered Phantom Assassin's cast animation time.

Gallery

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  Splash artwork

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  Early concept artwork

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  Early alpha model based on the early concept art

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  Leaked concept artwork

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  Early textures of the current model, featuring different color scheme

See also

• Phantom Assassin responses