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29 Votes

Ultimate PL from the Scratch !

July 26, 2015 by GGnet.Ace
Comments: 24    |    Views: 158315    |   


Build 1
Build 2

Hero Build

DotA2 Hero: Phantom Lancer




Hero Skills

Spirit Lance

2 3 5 7

Doppelganger

1 4 8 9

Phantom Rush

6 15 17 18

Juxtapose

10 11 16

Talents

12 13 14

Introduction, Pros and cons

Phantom Lancer is a very slippery monkey who excels at mid games clashes while he has the ability to survive or turn around those fights.
He isnt the pusher he was after the change not a late game hero as well.

Pros
Great Debuff
Outruns every single hero (Besides Bloodseeker if your team is on 20%)
Decent last hit damage+animation
Quite good spammable nuke

Cons
susceptible to aoe nukes/maelstorm
average late game potential
no rat/roshan capability due to his passives
kinda really item dependent

Friends and Foes

Friends:
All kinds of support are welcome on the easy lane that you will go to.Some of them however come out on top compared to the others

Keeper of the Light
Shadow Demon
Crystal Maiden

Foes:
All heroes who have clearing abilities to make you recognizable among your illusions.
Namely

Ember Spirit
Meepo
Mjollnir
Earthshaker
Sand King
Queen of Pain
Battle Fury
Magnus
Gyrocopter
Medusa
Legion Commander

The poor carry's build

You probably had a strong offlaner, or got ganked several times ,or both of them , or had an offensive trilane.
You go for basic items until you are good enough to win the game, you dont opt to show your friends the end game screen and demonstrate your gpm , you just wanna make their throne/tree die.

You need to grab your Diffusal Blade but not just it because you will be food.
Stats are required to make your illusions a bit tanky. Furthermore you need cheap cost effective items.

Post Purge you need something really big and that is the hard point of this build since you have to rely on kills to get that item since enemies wont let you farm as much as you please.For me Skadi is the best item on PL after diffusal since they completely stack and it solves you many of your stats problems.But in case of annoying silences Manta Style is good if you need much Hp Heart of Tarasque is quite decent and in case of annoying single target heroes Linken's Sphere is good too.

Furthermore you have to opt for a damage item .For me Butterfly is the choice because illusions profit from the agility and evasion but if lockdown is your concern Abyssal Blade is the best.

The Greedy Ahole

First of all I believe this is probably the only right way to play lancer since his carry potential due to lower agility and lower illusion duration has gone down you gotta outfarm the enemy carry/carries.

Hand of Midas + Boots of Travel are essential and not dying is as essential as those 2.
Normally you go Hand of Midas before Boots of Speed but depending on how much harass you receive you could get it after as well.
Furthermore opt for Boots of Travel you might wanna buy Headress before that if you getting harassed down.Then get a Vladmir's Offering and make sure when you dont push the lane you get farmed in the jungle ,your jungle or the enemy jungle.
The concept is quite clear you farm like madman but thanks to your Boots of Travel you dont miss teamfights as well.Feel free to join at a convenient moment for you and last hit either with Spirit Lance or hit.
Its incredible how fast you can build inventory using that build , your gpm shouldn't be lower than 700.
Then post Diffusal Blade you build into Eye of Skadi and thats it game over.
(Some decent timings are skadi before 26-28 minute mark and you are good to win)

Winning fights

Its all about the Doppelganger use .You should use it to avoid projectiles.
Also remember to join the fights at a convenient moment for you in order to have minimum risk of dying and maximum efficiency at getting away with murder.
You usually throw Spirit Lance then Phantom Rush towards them and when they try to turn around to nuke/stun you you use Doppelganger.

Also remember Doppelganger is a debuff it clears most of negative buffs.
(It doesnt work on rupture).
Furthermore you should be cautious on your use of it because an early Doppelganger leaves you vulnerable to enemies with Silver Edge for example.

Hard work paying off (dotabuff)

http://www.dotabuff.com/heroes/phantom-lancer/players
On the initial statistics board I was placed as #73 :) Its not much it doesn't pay but
it feels good to be on the same list with ferrari 430.

http://pho.to/7TVDY
Picture because stats will change eventually
http://www.dotabuff.com/players/92549983
and there is my dotabuff
Update: I am currently #29 hoping to kick ferrari's *** soon :)
http://pho.to/7ySc0/0n

Explaining furthermore Tips and credits

WHY DO MOST PHANTOM LANCERS GET DIFFUSAL BLADE ?
To answer than we must look into mechanics of dota .Behind mana burn on hit of anti mage necronomicon warrior or diffusal blade there is extra damage dealt that is written nowhere.
To answer with numbers Diffusal blade AM's Mana burn and necronomicon warrior manaburn
Deals 0.7 damage for every point of mana burnt
Hurts eh ?
Also illusions do full mana burn of diffusal level 1/2.

Note:Before getting purge its highly recommended to get orb of venom.Orb of venom works 100% on illusions and its pretty cheap for what it does.When you get purge get rid of orb of venom because it doesnt stack. Also consider skipping orb of venom if you are farming too good.
Update:Orb of venom doesnt stack on illusions anymore it doesnt work at all on illusions

Also before rushing diffusal you need hp and mana.Ring of Aquila and Drums cover such needs
with (2670 gold) and allow you to lane FOREVER.These items will allow you to trade some manly hits while your lance is on cooldown with enemies without having to go imediately invisible,or allow you to chase faster.

After purge you have to make your illusions tankier so you get a vit booster which will be upgrades to heart later on.
Since you are already quite tanky for an agility paper hero you get manta right after for debuffing silences or dusts or simply for illusion deceit and manup.

To fill your inventory with the best possible item choices consider what illusions profit from more.For example prefer Butterfly to Ethereal blade because illusions can profit from the evasion.More than 3 Illusions do more damage than you do so consider skipping items like Abyssal blade (since illusions dont get bash) and fill them with useful items like butterfly (evasion), radiance (Burn),Diffusal Blade (Mana burn),Heart (HP),Skadi/Orb of venom (Slow on illusions),***ult Cuirass (armor/As).
That is why you would rather get those items compared to damage items like daedalus and rappier,mkb .

Tips:
-Use your illusions to scout runes,roshan,jungle or even enemy heroes.
-Always carry a tp as mentioned above unless you have boots of travel.
-If enemy team is chasing you before going invis Turn off your radiance by left clicking it.
-Pick Phantom lancer only if there is a fitting lineup to support you.Without support you will most likely fail.
-If enemy team has gem DONT USE YOUR DOPPELWALK because you will reveal yourself instant
conceal in your army of illusions and even right click the enemies they probably wont notice you until someone dies from them.

Some inspirational plays from Phantom Lancer players than you need to see:
1.ZSMJ's Phantom Lancer in FtD vs Kingsurf brought to you by Luminous (dota 1)
2. Burning's Phatom Lancer vs LGD this game has many mistakes but still its a very good example of how to play PL

3. Sven Hunters vs Evil Geniuses No Audio PL

http://www.joindota.com/en/vods/3213-the-defense-3-evil-geniuses-vs-svenhunterz

The most farmed Phantom lancer ever (including neuts furion treants and zombies from tomb)
4. Nth vs Empire on EMS grand finals
5. Alliance (Nth) vs LGD in the winners bracket of The International 3.
color=#ff0000]Alliance (Nth) vs LGD in the winners bracket of The International 3[/color].
After this game of PL dota showed me a game over screen
http://dotabuff.com/matches/339517794


Thanks to Luminous.
Ty for your time give me some feedback positive or Negative.

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