Phantom Lancer

Azwraith the Phantom Lancer is a melee agility carry and pusher because of his capability of generating multiple illusions in a matter of seconds. He requires deep cunning, positioning, and most importantly, great micromanagement as his illusions might just get in the way rather than help the situation if not utilized correctly. Many of his abilities help him in his creation of images, allowing him to always have a companion. He has a nuke ability in, which deals high damage, slows the target, and creates an illusion at his target's location. His escape ability allows him to quickly relocate himself and any nearby illusions while creating additional ones, possibly tricking enemies into wasting their spells and time in trying to kill said illusions. His passive allows him and his illusions to close the distance toward a target when issued an attack order, giving him the ability to quickly focus single targets in battle. His ultimate gives him the ability to generate a large number of illusions when attacking a target, while giving said illusions the ability to replicate themselves as well. Phantom Lancer is an extremely mobile hero who is hard to pin down and can quickly overwhelm his opponents in battle.

Tips

 * Though attack speed is still important on and still a by-product of making the hero stronger, it is no longer needed as much to create images as he now creates an image on every other attack at level 16.
 * Illusions are counted as Heroes in a target check. However, they receive effects intended for units. An example is 's, which will stun 's illusions by 5 seconds. Even with this fact, Hero-only spells like 's can be cast on illusions.
 * Creating confusion for your enemies is what the is known for along with outnumbering the enemy. Use illusions to cause unnecessary chases, wasted skillshots, pointless ultimates, and frustration for your enemy. But be sure to pay attention to the real Phantom Lancer while your illusions run around, however.
 * Illusions can have cast on them if a Dazzle is on your team; you can further fool your enemy by making them chase the wrong.
 * When choosing an item build, remember that not all passive abilities are shared with illusions.
 * An is an extremely effective purchase for  - Great stats across the board, all of which will benefit illusions, and a spell immunity-piercing slow which, in conjunction with his slows and speed buffs, along with the mana drain from  that prevents enemies from casting any possible escape mechanisms, will make  impossible to escape from assuming no teammate is around to help his enemy.
 * Because of the fact that illusions do not last very long, a should be considered in every game if the player wishes to use 's deceiving abilities effectively, as the illusions provided by it last much longer and hit harder, giving him a higher chance to bait the enemy into poor spots or using their ultimates without the real  around.
 * While incredibly strong against single target heroes, can find himself in great difficulty when facing off against enemies with a lot of strong Area of Effect abitilities, especially in the early and mid game as his illusions are very easily disposed of without strong items (Examples of such heroes include  and ). As a hard carry, you will become stronger as the game goes on while a very large percentage of those heroes (including the ones previously mentioned) will see the usefulness of their abilities scale off severely; Some, however, can continue giving him problems in the late game (And arguably more trouble than before) and make you more of a threat to your own team rather than the enemy. Some examples of heroes that can counter Phantom Lancer strongly at any stage of the game are:
 * is very arguably the strongest possible counter to, for several reasons; However, the main one being his ability - This ability allows Ember to mark an area on the ground before immediately rushing to slash all enemy units marked within it, with no exceptions, all slashes work exactly like Ember's regular right-click attacks (Though with a bonus or minus damage depending on the unit attacked), and Ember is invulnerable until all enemies have been either attacked, killed or made invulnerable (0.2 seconds of invulnerability per unit) - With a  and any other strong right-click item like a , Ember Spirit can easily annihilate all of your illusions and even yourself with a single . In fact, if there enough units within the radius, he could potentially kill your entire team with a single use of his ability. In addition to just that, however, his  creates a fire around him that damages all enemy units, being able to deal up to 1200 points of damage (before reductions) to a single unit if they stay near him through the whole duration, while his  produces an AoE explosion whenever he lands on top of it with.
 * is very close to being impossible to manfight as he has a built-in 66% cleave with (He can turn it into 101% cleave with a ), an armor buff that reduces all illusion damage to both himself and nearby allies with, and an AoE stun/nuke with . On top of all, however, he also has his ultimate  which ups his base damage by up to 300% as much damage, making his burst ability against not just one target, but multiple ones, incredibly difficult to survive, especially if he builds a . It is very much worth noting that cleave damage essentially acts as pure damage - Even though it is registered as Physical Damage by Damage Block and will therefore block (some of) it, cleave damage does not react to armor values whatsoever - This means that if he does build a , Sven does not even need to hit the real , as he would actually be dealing more damage than he would otherwise by hitting your nearby illusions.
 * While may not propose a big threat whenever his ultimate  is on cooldown, it is a strong enough ability to destroy both you and your illusions (And your team) whenever it is off cooldown as it has no upper damage cap and with an, all of your illusions will count as heroes meaning they will echo damage twice, resulting in catastrophic amounts of damage if there are enough targets near him.
 * is rarely mentioned as a counter as he may in some cases not pose much of a threat other than annihilating your illusion army with, but he becomes an extremely deadly enemy once he gets his hands on Aghanim's Scepter, as his upgraded will apply  to ALL your illusions it hit and not just you, and once the illusions die it will trigger a chain of damaging explosions that will take you and any nearby ally with them during the Mid Game and still apply heavy damage during the Late game. Add Epicenter to the equation and the combo can do even more damage  than 's  - all on a lower cooldown, making him an ever-existing threat through the game.
 * is capable of showing the real if  if the real  is targeted by the spell. At the same time,  becomes a powerful threat to  due to the damage drain.  cannot remove  nor can any other strong dispel such as . The only way to counter  is through.

Trivia

 * In DotA, Phantom Lancer's in-game model was a fan interpretation of Kimahri Ronso, a playable character in the RPG game Final Fantasy X. As such, the Phantom Lancer of Dota 2 gained many similarities with Kimahri, namely the blue skin, humanoid feline appearance, and halberd weapon.