Templar Assassin

Lanaya the Templar Assassin is a short-ranged Agility hero capable of dealing huge bursts of Physical damage to swathes of enemies with expert positioning and timing. Unlike most physical damage dealers, Lanaya reaches her damage potential quite early and then scales up from that point with carry items, letting her gank with impunity throughout the mid-game, and her range changes from a melee hero to a ranged hero with short reach as she levels Psi Blades.

Her Psionic Traps provide map control and the ability to chase down fleeing heroes from up to 2000 range, and Refraction and Meld lets you shrug off high-damage nukes and disjoint projectiles. With a Blink Dagger, Lanaya can quickly materialize in the enemy team's weakest flank and shred several heroes at once with her Meld and Psi Blades.

Tips

 * Refraction is highly desirable to level up first, as the increased number of instances is key in playing mind games and the attack damage increase is also significant.
 * Although leveling Meld will give Lanaya even more damage, it can be difficult to get in attack range to use it effectively without points in Psi Blades. If your team has disables that will give you time to move up into range, or if you can get an early Blink Dagger, Meld is a good choice.
 * Alternatives to the blink build include Drum of Endurance and/or Yasha. While the sheer mobility of a blink dagger is unrivaled, the health, damage, mana, and movement speed of these items may be more reliable.
 * A similar choice is presented in choosing Phase Boots vs Power Treads.
 * Use Psi Blades as a harass. It has a great spill radius, and not only can it be used to farm more effectively, but also to harass heroes in lane.
 * Denying with Refraction active will not use up a charge. Use denies in combination with Psi Blades to get your last hits without running out of charges.
 * Place Psionic Traps at the rune spawn points and in the Roshan pit to gain vision.
 * Other good places for traps include jungle paths, secret shop, between enemy towers, and the top of ramps.
 * When chasing, try to place your traps slightly ahead of enemies and let them charge up to 35% or 40% rather than the base 30%.
 * Refraction and Meld deal physical damage and can be used to farm siege creeps and ancients. Refraction also works on towers.
 * Meld can be used to dodge projectiles with its instant fade time. Staying in meld may be used as an escape but enemies will often use AoE effects to kill you even if they don't have detection.
 * Refraction has no down time with regards to cooldown. If you have enough mana, preemptive use will give you more charges in a fight.

Trivia

 * In DotA, Templar Assassin makes numerous references to the game Starcraft, another famous RTS game by Blizzard. Her ability to manipulate psionic energy, the psi blades she wields, and the mention of her master being originally from Aiur in her DotA biography all apply to the Protoss, one of the three main races of the game.