Mortred, The Phantom Assasin - DotA Hero Strategy Guide

Born into the reclusive Night Elf order known as the Wardens and shunned by mainstream Night Elf society, Mortred pledged allegiance to the Scourge to take revenge. A perfect blend of strength and speed, the years spent alone in the forests of Ashenvale allowed her to blend into the terrain, appearing phantomlike at times and striking when you least expect it. The deadly precision with which she carries out her attacks have made her a valuable member of the Scourge, and it is clear why she is known as the Phantom Assassin.

Base HP: 473
Base Mana: 169

Strength - 17 + 2.05
Agility - 23 + 3.15 (Primary)
Intelligence- 13 + 1

Base damage 46-48
Attack range of 100 (melee)
Base Armor 4
Movement speed of 310

Strengths and Weaknesses

Positives
Strongest Critical in the game (4x!)
Has one of the greatest passive skill named Blur (28% evasion)
Most frightening hero if she got the right item
Has a skill to help farm early game

Negatives
Low starting HP and melee range
Fragile early game
As with all melee heroes, prone to disable-lock
Very low intelligence gain

Your most noticable weakness is your early game fragility. This guide's build will focus on items that will attempt to make the early game easier at an acceptable price, as well as being a worthwhile investment even in the later stages of the game.
Later in the game your power increases drastically through your critical, high Agility gain and chasing ability. If you survive early you will annihilate your foes later on.


Skill Descriptions

Stiffling Dagger



Hurls a dagger which deals minor pure damage and slow the unit's movement speed for a short duration. Deals half damage to heroes.

Level 1 - 40 Damage, 20% Slow. Lasts 2 seconds.
Level 2 - 80 Damage, 25% Slow. Lasts 2.75 seconds.
Level 3 - 120 Damage, 30% Slow. Lasts 3.5 seconds.
Level 4 - 160 Damage, 35% Slow. Lasts 4.25 seconds.

On the early games, use this skill to farm, farm and farm. IceFrog give this skill to Mortred at 6.51 only to help her farm. On the late game, this skill is still usefull to slow down the enemy while you chase it. This will be the skill that we will be maxing first.

Blink Strike



Teleports to a unit and strikes at it if it is a foe, dealing bonus damage. Casting range improves per level.

Level 1 - 30 second cooldown, deals 30 extra damage.
Level 2 - 20 second cooldown, deals 60 extra damage.
Level 3 - 10 second cooldown, deals 90 extra damage.
Level 4 - 5 second cooldown, deals 120 extra damage.
Can teleport to an ally.

This is the skill you're going to be using just about all the time. It can be used for last hits, harassing, chasing, and even fleeing.

Blur



The Phantom Assassin becomes hard to see by blurring her body. Some enemy attacks miss.

Mortred unique skill. This skill somehow one of the best passive in the game. With 28% evasion, you will be hard to kill and since you became a giant dot, some noob won’t notify that you already attacked him. Unfortunately, this skill won’t help you against nuker on early game.

Level 1 - 7% dodge.
Level 2 - 14% dodge.
Level 3 - 21% dodge.
Level 4 - 28% dodge.

Coup De Grace



Mortred has refined her hero-killing skills to a high degree. She has a small chance to deal 4 times normal damage on an attack.

Level 1 - 15% chance to 2.0x critical.
Level 2 - 15% chance to 3.0x critical.
Level 3 - 15% chance to 4.0x critical

This ability gives you the highest DPS in the entire game. A Mortred critical is completely unmatched in strength- nothing compares to it. This is what makes your hero so feared!

Skill Build

Level 1: Blink Strike
Level 2: Stiffling Dagger
Level 3: Stiffling Dagger
Level 4: Blink Strike
Level 5: Stiffling Dagger
Level 6: Coup De Gras
Level 7: Stiffling Dagger
Levels 8-9: Blink Strike
Level 10: Blur
Level 11: Coup De Gras
Levels 12-14: Blur
Level 15: Stats
Level 16: Coup De Gras
Levels 17-25: Stats

Your first skill is blink strike, it will help you escape from level 1 ganking. We maxing Stiffling Dagger as fast as possible. This skill will be very usefull during early games. Like the other low HP agility hero, you’re gonna have a hard period of farming in early game. Especially when you’re facing nuker. When you do, use Stiffling Dagger to help you last hitting. Your main focus on early game is farming as much as you can (and don’t die!). Stiffling Dagger also a great skill for harassing. Even though the damage is poor, if you use it when the creeps chase the enemies heroes, the slow will give great damage.

After we max Stifling Dagger, Blink Strike is next. Those two is give pretty much damage with low mana cost. Since we skip stats, your hp will be low. But Bracers will fill this gap. Coup De Grace is taken early, because this is the one who make everybody feared her.

Item Build

1. Tangos + Gauntlet of Ogre Strength + Clarities
2. Ring of Health
3. Void Stone (Finish Perseverence)
4. Finish Bracer
5. Boots of Speed
6. Another Bracer
7. Belt of Giant Strength
8. Glove of Haste
9. Finish Power Treads
10. Claymore
11. Broadsword (Finish Battlefury)
12. Mask of Death
13. Helm of Ironwill (Finish Helm of Dominator)

Your core item should be like this:



Late Game Items

or + + +

Basically, your core items will be enough to make your enemy fear you. Your damage output is already high enough. But when the games prolonged, then you will need to grab more items for your survivability, since the enemy is most likely focusing on you. Go for BKB, if your enemy have so many disabler (Rhasta is sucks indeed!). Your evasion won't save you from spells and nukers. Satanic will give you bigger lifesteal and HP, will help you against another DPS hero. Assault Cuirass will greatly increase you IAS and reduction to your enemy armor. Monkey King Bar will also add more damage output from you. Finally, HoT will make you even Godly. When you get all of this items, probably no one will beat you..

Strategy

Using Mortred means you will have to be very carefull to not let her die. Your primary mission is only to farm and survive. Don’t waste your time by looking early frag, you will get it in the late game. Now then, the first two build items are pretty self-explanatory. Alternatively you could buy a Chicken and Bracer parts/Flask, whatever suits you. Once you do reach your lane quickly take note of your enemy heroes. If you're against two heroes and one of them is a nuker then stay as far back as you can without losing experience.
If you're against just one hero or two weak early gamers then begin farming immediately. If you're against two heroes and at least one of them is a nuker then you will begin farming at level 3 with Stiffling Dagger (or level 1 if you have a great timing with the Stiffling Dagger). The idea behind this is simple- when an enemy creep hits the low red hit it with your Dagger. This will help you farm while stay away from their nuke. Maybe for the first time using this Dagger, you will miss the hit or didn't get the last hit. Stiffling Dagger need some timing to use it properly. After several shot, i'm surely sure you will get the timing.

The damage to the creep is not instant. It's like a range heroes attack, so you must use it with proper timing

The first major part of my build is the choice of Bracers. Put simply, Bracers are the best value item that Mortred could ever buy. The HP boost they give is invaluable and they're really, really easy to make. Bracers are for early game survival, and they fit the bill very nicely. Especially in Mortred's case they completely outdo Nulls and Wraiths, since you don't need much mana for Stiffling Dagger and +3 to Agility is pretty negligible. Bracers beat out items like Vanguard and the Point Booster as well, being composed of smaller, cheaper items giving you more control over when and how you purchase them.

Next comes the Ring of Health, which is used for your later Perseverance with Void Stone and give you HP & mana regen, which will now allow you to harass with Blink Strike and Stiffling Dagger. The best possible time to do this is at your tower when the enemy hero is starting to move back until the creeps push toward him again. When he moves away quickly cast Blink Strike on him followed by Stiffling Dagger and hit him in the back several times, then quickly run back to the safety of your tower. If you do it right then you'll take a good 200+ HP from your opponent at the cost of a small amount of mana. However, this takes practice to know when exactly you want to Blink Strike in. If you do it at the wrong moment your enemy will be prepared and will retaliate, which is bad. Practice will assist you greatly in learning this skill.

Your Perseverance shouldn't take very long to complete and with these items you are much easier to use your skill often. After getting Boots and Belt of Giant Strength, you'll have a lot of HP compared to a good many heroes and your HP regen probably outdoes anyone else on the map. It's possible to get kills at this point with nothing but Stiffling Dagger, Shadow Strike and a weak critical if you choose your target right. Look for weakened heroes and soft targets such as the Sniper. Try to get a kill or two here if you can, and if not then just go back and farm up to your Battlefury and Treads. It's very likely that you won't be able to kill anyone here. Don't think you've been doing something wrong because you can't. Stiffling Dagger is always available to you for assisting in ganking, remember.

With Perseverance, a level 2 Coup De Grace and maxed Stiffling Dagger & Blink Strike it becomes even more possible to kill heroes. If you face weak hero, just jump with Blink Strike, Stiffling Dagger, hit, another Blink Strike and Stiffling Dagger will make the enemies hardly escape from you. The low cooldown of both skills is the key for this scenario. If you're not sure about your target, don't hesitate. Don't risk you life. If you die too much, your late game will be ruined. Just go to forest and farms some creeps.

I should note now that I'm not going to go into specific ways of using Blink Strike to escape enemies. With Mortred (unless they changed it again) it's possible to Blink Strike your allies, allowing you to possibly escape what could be a fatal situation. This doesn't happen all that often- there will actually be instances where Blink Striking to a creep will slow you down rather than help you get away. Usually the only time Blink Striking to an ally will help you is if the unit is moving in the direction that you want to go or is not moving at all, otherwise it'll probably just slow you down. Just keep it in mind and if you see an opportunity to do it, then do it.

At this point in the game it's likely that some pushes will be happening as well. When the enemy team pushes you want to stick yourself onto the most fragile hero you can find and just whack at them. If an enemy attempts to flee then Stiffling Dagger him and chase him down, as that's what you're best at. You really aren't that strong when it comes to team fights but your slow will be a big help in these situations.

By the time you're level 16 with your Coup De Grace at level 3 you should have your Treads, Bracers and Battlefury. If you haven't been able to farm that much you're probably going to lose. With Battlefury, your criticals are going to be a major force to be reckoned with, and heroes are going to really start fearing your high damage. Battlefury will also help you fast farming and make great amount money for your luxury.

Your next item is Helm of Dominator and life leech the enemies. The leech will help you survive on battle since the HP regeneration is minor right now. After get your Helm of Dominator search for some Stomper and remember to have your Stomper with you. You'll want him around at all times because he may save your life or net you a kill. If a hero is foolish enough to be running around alone then show him no mercy- there isn't much that can handle you 1v1 at this point except for heroes with high DPS AND disables. As long as you can stick to the hero and keep leeching him he probably won't be able to kill you.

Your Battlefury will send your criticals to 450+ and you'll be getting them quite a lot because of your high Agility and decent IAS. Combine this with the life leech virtually no hero can handle you alone and few heroes can escape thanks to your slow and your Blink Strike. Your biggest fear here is ganks, and because Mortred has no reliable escape mechanism you're going to have to rely on intelligence to stay alive. Stick with your allies and watch your mini-map so that your foes can't stop your slaughterfest with a few ganks too many.

Your Battlefury will make you farm like hell and there are a couple of items you can consider. The first is to grab another strong item like Monkey King Bar, Assault Cuirass and the second is to get a survival item like Satanic or Black King Bar, depending on your enemies. Black King Bar helps against (you guessed it) disabler and further damage is generally purchased when you want some extra oomph on your criticals or need to defend against large creep pushes.

When it comes to team battle, hid yourself. Wait until the battle initiate and quickly jump to the weakest enemy heroes, like Snipers. In the middle of chaos, the enemy will hardly get a quick response to your attack. After get your target, quickly jump into the another enemies with lowest HP. Even if they are fleeing, with Stiffling Dagger and Blink Strike, you will get them in no time.

What do you think? Have another thought about Mortred build? Share it here :)