Spectre

Mercurial the Spectre is a melee Agility hero adept at dealing pure damage to lone targets, and is powerful both offensively and defensively. Spectral Dagger provides a significant amount of mobility, allowing Spectre to go through objects, units and terrain while slowing foes that come in contact with the shadowy path left by her Spectral Dagger. Desolate allows her to inflict high pure damage to enemy heroes when she catches them alone. Dispersion reduces and reflects all damage, whether by attacks or spells, to an area around her. Dispersion gives her great durability, especially when equipped with items that provide health, armor, and damage block. Finally, her Haunt creates a malevolent spectral illusion to all enemy heroes in the map. Haunt lets Spectre wreak havoc in clashes and ganks, while her allies take advantage of the confusion. Spectre can use Reality during the Haunt, instantly teleporting her to her illusion to take its form. This lets her hound her victim anywhere on the map. Mercurial is a dangerous supernatural being, relentless as she can chase and stalk down her victim to a global range, unhindered by boundaries. Her kit allows her to play the role of the team's hard carry by applying an immense amount of pressure in late game team fights. More specifically, the damage reflection from Dispersion makes it disadvantageous for teams to focus her. Her abilities have a complex nature, and newer players should generally not play Spectre as she is extremely farm and level dependent. It is best to face Spectre with allied help and strength, as encountering her alone is not always the best option.

Recommended items
Starting Items:
 * An early will help supplement Spectre's low base damage and increases her farming speed throughout the game.
 * Health regen in the form of and a  keep her from having to leave the lane and lose valuable experience and gold.
 * can help reduce harass damage taken from lane opponents. Later can be upgraded in a.

Early Items:
 * help her escape attackers and chase down weakened enemies.
 * increased damage block, and additional agility for more base damage and armor.
 * provides agility and bonus damage, and mana regen aura.

Core Items:
 * can add to her damage nukes or be used to recover health after ganks.
 * The bonus damage helps on last hitting and provide even more mobility with the Phase ability.
 * more strength and intelligence and a bigger health and mana pool. The aura increases her and allies movement and attack speed.
 * More DPS and MS, later can be upgraded in a or.

Situational Items:
 * give Spectre some HP which goes well with Dispersion and attack speed to complement her high damage Desolate attacks. Tread switching to int can also help her low mana pool when casting dagger.
 * gives a large amount of damage block, which is calculated after all reductions, including Dispersion. It also gives raw HP, again giving more value from Dispersion, and HP regeneration, which most farming heroes need to farm without breaks.
 * and both transfer to illusions, dealing a ton of damage whenever she Haunts. Radiance can be rushed to further increase an early farm lead, though the 3800 gold relic can be harsh to save up for.
 * creates more illusions, dealing even more instances of Desolate damage. The movement speed is also highly desirable as melee heroes like Spectre can often be kited.
 * Tanking up with a will take advantage of Dispersion and make her illusions difficult to remove.
 * and are strong late game weapons that also work well with illusions.
 * is a more midgame snowballing item. The stats transfer well to illusions and the extra movement speed will help Spectre stick to her target.
 * adds significant farming and push potential, while filling the AoE damage role of while also scaling better and having an easier buildup. However, illusions get no benefits from it.
 * provides great general attribute bonuses, solves Spectre's mana issues, and gives her a slow that penetrates through magic immunity that allows her chase and forces attention on her. The early and  give Spectre great early presence, also late game.
 * adds some damage and HP along with BKB-penetrating anticarry and chase potential that again forces attention onto her.
 * makes Spectre incredibly tanky against magic damage when combined with Dispersion (combined 59.05% resistance), and increases her teamfight presence with the HP regen and active ability.
 * has incredible synergy with Spectre's skill set. The HP and offensive bonuses work with Dispersion and Desolate respectively, which also transfer to her Haunt illusions. The passive regen fills the need of a for her core, while armlet toggling provides increased HP for Spectre to disperse.
 * adds extra durability and makes Haunt a global -5 armor for the duration while giving any teammates in range extra armor and attack speed. The attack speed has good synergy with Desolate, but does not transfer to illusions.

Tips

 * has a weak lane presence. Picking her requires a team that will largely be able to support her in the laning phase. Contrary to popular belief, she's actually a very solid damage dealer early on if you build her for it - 65 extra pure damage on each attack is nothing to scoff at.
 * One of Spectre's biggest strengths as a carry is her ability to participate in teamfights and ganks instantly through without wasting valuable farming time.
 * The shadow path left by lets her keep track on her prey even if the are invisible or have blinked/teleported. It also slows her target and enemies who came in to the path.
 * It is generally a good idea to level up Spectral Dagger first to provide Spectre with extra mobility so that she is harder to pin down during ganks. However, be wary of its mana cost, as a single Spectral Dagger will typically consume half your mana pool per cast (in the early game).
 * Maxing early is the best way to increase the effectiveness of Haunt. Maxing Spectral Dagger early, on the other hand, is also desirable as its level 1 offensive capabilities are almost negligible.
 * It is sometimes beneficial to leave at level 1 in the early- and mid-game. Your illusions will not be strong enough to significantly benefit from an extra one or two seconds during skirmishes or team fights, and the extra points may be better spent in your other abilities or the.
 * In late game teamfights, Haunt and Desolate will allow your illusions to wither down support heroes at the back at significant speeds. In addition, you should always be in the middle of team fights to maximize the damage reflection of.
 * Do not forget that Desolate only works if enemies are not close together. If you are playing against a Spectre, make sure to hug your ally if she comes at you to reduce her damage dramatically.
 * Spectre can perform as a viable solo offlaner by using Spectral Dagger to hide in trees before creeps meet in lane, allowing you to freely leech EXP off the lane with no risk of being killed, and quickly reach level six to gank with Dagger and Haunt.
 * Using to farm is a common tactic, allowing Spectre to farm areas of the map in which she would be in risk of a gank. Combined with, Spectre can be a rather effective split pusher.

Trivia

 * The name Mercurial most likely comes from the DeviantART account of Kenneth Tan, the person who made the 6.28-6.32 loadscreen. 6.28 is also the version in which Spectre got released in DotA.
 * "Mercurial" means "swift, shrewd, and deceitful", which is attributed to the Roman god of thieves, Mercury, as Spectre is an agile and quick Hero. It can also refer to the planet Mercury, since Spectre is an otherworldly entity. Mercurial can also hint towards the element Mercury, often called "quicksilver," which is another reference to Spectre's speed and mobility.
 * Spectre's alternate/fun name "Qwerty-" was given to her for remembering a legendary Dota player Zaven "Qwerty" Terminasov, who died on December 5, 2010.
 * Spectre's voice responses are overlayed with the same track playing backwards, bearing a huge similarity to the Spirit of Vengeance's voice in Warcraft III: Frozen Throne, which is also the voice of Spectre in DotA.