Morphling/Guide

Carry
Morphling typically enters the game with a sensitive laning phase. His short auto attack range and extremely low base damage require him to morph early points into agility early on to keep up in last hits, leaving him fragile for the first few levels. As he gains levels, however, his Waveform evolves into a potent area-of-effect nuke which can easily grab him kills to accelerate his farm. Additionally, early points in Morph Agility/Strength allow him escape out of danger so long he has mana or is not silenced.

In order to transition to the mid-game safely, however, Morphling requires a significant amount of mana and mana regeneration to keep up. All four of his spells are demanding on mana, but a healthy supply of it will allow him to escape, gank, split push, and adapt to all manners of fighting with impunity. This is typically why Linken's Sphere is a strong item to pick up on him. He benefits from the stats it provides and Perseverance gives him early game sustenance. The spell block is invaluable; the strongest silences and hexes in the game are instant and targeted, giving him enough reaction time to Morph Replicate out of very dangerous situations. However, an early Bottle and good use of Morph Replicate and Boots of Travel can provide sustainability and a huge amount of mobility to farm faster. This is especially powerful when paired with Keeper of the Light, who can supply mana and Recall Morphling around the map.

Carry Morphling typically transitions into the mid-game in two primary ways. The first is through the Shotgun build, where one can purchase an Ethereal Blade. In combination with Adaptive Strike, this allows him to shut down fragile targets with ease, especially in games where the enemy team is often separated. The second is a more defensive, farming oriented build with Manta Style, which allows him to split push and dispel debuffs with ease. In the late game, Morphling has many options. With a full set of stat-heavy items, he boasts the strongest natural auto-attack speed and damage in the game, making items such as Satanic, Daedelus, and Monkey King Bar very profitable on him. He also makes incredible use of every stat on Eye of Skadi and Butterfly, two must-have late game items which allow him to go toe-to-toe with even the hardest of carries.

Despite his strengths as a scaling carry, Morphling is a difficult carry to play from behind. Waveform is an expensive spell and he has no in-built sustain to farm jungle creeps easily, and Adaptive Strike requires levels and items to become an effective nuke. In addition, his lack of multiple-target damage makes it difficult for him to join larger teamfights in the early or mid game. Careful consideration needs to be made when picking him into your team. For example, you can consider choosing magic-heavy team compositions to abuse his Ethereal Blade magic damage amplification, a split-push composition, or a composition which is heavy on initiation power so he can unload his damage without risk.

Support
Support Morphling is a build which maxes Adaptive Strike early on to abuse a 4.25 second stun with 900 cast range. An Adaptive Strike with this power is unlocked as early as level 7, allowing Morphling to contribute as an extremely powerful early-game ganker. Because of this, a solo lane (typically offlane) suits support Morphling the best. The sooner he can attain his levels, the sooner he can disrupt other lanes. With some gold, support Morphling can build initiation items like Eul's Scepter of Divinity, Blink Dagger, Force Staff, Shadow Blade, and so on. In certain team compositions an early Aghanim's Scepter opens up an entirely new playstyle. Hybrid has a huge amount of uses. Purchasing Aghanim's Scepter allows Support Morphling to transition into more than a hero that stuns from long range, and is a good idea to pick up if you have extra gold around.

General

 * Early on, go mid or have a support keep you safe in the safe lane while you farm.
 * Focus on farming up items. Only go for kills if you know you can get it.
 * Morphling functions better as a carry in teams with a strong front line. This allows him to remain in the fight with a high amount of agility and hence right click or Adaptive Strike damage, without feeling the pressure of being focused. Although he is good at soaking damage through Morph Strength and items such as Linken's Sphere and Eye of Skadi, he is much more useful as your team's primary source of consistent damage.


 * Use this to escape from ganks early game. If going for kills, use this after using Adaptive Strike if you have that leveled.
 * Assuming you have the regen and the mana pool, you can use waveform to speed up farming while going for those big items.
 * Morphling's early game damage is relatively high with Waveform and decent right click through Morph. Consider laning with an aggressive support to grab some early game kills so you can accelerate your farm and reach your late game faster.


 * As Adaptive Strike scales with attributes, it should not be leveled until after Waveform is maxed and should be the last ability maxed out.
 * When wanting to maximize the damage, shift to full damage. If needing to escape, use it after you shift to mostly strength.
 * This is your primary damage spell after you finish
 * You do not need to go full agility or strength. Only 50% agility over strength is needed, and vice versa


 * As Morph gives +3 to both Agility and Strength with one level, it is a very strong ability to get at level 1.
 * Know when to switch between agility and strength. During the laning stage, put more into agility but keep enough in strength so if you get ganked you'll have enough HP to survive. When farming creeps, feel free to put more into agility, and when escaping fights put more into strength.
 * If you are low on life and being chased/targeted, use Morph to increase your health and health regeneration to increase the difficulty of killing you. Note the moderate mana cost with this ability on.
 * Agility will increase damage, attack speed, and armor which increases EHP vs physical opponents. Strength, but more HP increases your EHP vs spells.
 * When lower strength, you also lose 20 for your current HP Pool each time the strength lowers. This cannot deny yourself.
 * Since Morph has a toggle ability, it will continue to function even while silenced; provided the ability was toggled on prior to being silenced.
 * When going back to base consider morphing some agility into strength in case of enemies with global abilities such as Zeus and Ancient Apparition or even Clockwerk and Nature's Prophet.


 * Use this on carries who build a lot of stat items to increase the effectiveness of them.
 * Alternatively use this on squishy supports and try to bait heroes into attacking it so you can Morph Replicate in and get an easy kill. Make sure the area around it is safe first.
 * If using it on carries, enable control for them so they can control the illusion themselves to help with whatever they're doing.
 * Sometimes deciding which hero to choose for Replicate can be difficult, however potential candidates for this spell include: a hero with high DPS, those with favorable passives (such as Axe's ), squishy support heroes that can be used for bait, tanky heroes (Replicates only take 100% damage), or even an enemy hero that has a Radiance or some other aura, which allows you to take advantage of receiving its effects for free.
 * Unlike most illusions in the game, the illusion created by Replicate does not take bonus damage, making it difficult to distinguish from an actual hero. You can use this to your advantage by replicating a high-priority ally and using the illusion to bait out enemy spells.
 * Remember there are a handful of abilities that are able to kill illusions instantly, easily wasting Replicate and Hybrid. Such abilities include, and.

Items
Starting items:
 * should always be picked up to give you sustain. If heading mid consider asking the supports to pool you tangoes.
 * give cost efficient stats and can be placed to increase the healing from your Tangoes.
 * improves Morphling's rather low starting armor.
 * should be considered if going mid rather than safe lane.

Early game:
 * should be the first item purchased if Morphling is playing the mid lane.
 * are necessary on Morphling to improve his slow 285 base movement speed.

Core items:
 * provides Damage, Mana regeneration and Armor, all of which Morphling needs.
 * are a great addition to Morphling's Build as they allow for a quick switch from attack power (Agility) to extra health (Strength).
 * allows Morphling to be fully agility morphed and still have a significant amount of HP. This means Skadi is an offensive and defensive item.

Situational items:
 * is a very interesting pickup on Morphling, and he is the strongest user of the item in the game. Often referred to as "Shotgun Morphling", Ethereal Blade allows you to very quickly deal a very large amount of magic damage to a single target by using the E-Blade active, Adaptive Strike, and Waveform in quick succession while morphed to high agility. This gives Morphling roaming and pick off potential. This is best gotten as the first or second major item on Morphling, as its effectiveness falls off once enemy heroes tank up, get BKBs, or start to group up. If you feel this item has outlived its usefulness, consider disassembling it to make a Butterfly. Keep in mind it scales really well with Morphling and can still output loads of damage late game.
 * gives a very large amount of damage and is one of the strongest defensive items in the game against enemy auto-attacks.
 * is very strong on Morphling, not only for the single target spell block, but also for the regeneration and stats that this item provides. Drawbacks of this item include the fact that it only blocks one spell, and its high cost. If a Linkens Sphere is not a viable item, a should be considered instead.
 * is very strong on Morphling, as his items are primarily attribute-based, which illusions inherit. An agility morphed Morphling with a few items can produce illusions that out-damage most other heroes in the game. Because silences are also potent counters against Morphling, a Manta Style's ability to purge debuffs and silences synergies well with his escape mechanisms.
 * allows Morphling to use his high DPS to rapidly heal himself full, via the active. However, if you get stunned while trying to lifesteal, you can still be very easily killed, so it should be paired with or used against teams with little lockdown potential.
 * is just a safe item to get if doesn't quite give you the protection from spells you need. That being said, don't replace Linkens with Black King Bar.