Phantom Assassin

Mortred the Phantom Assassin is a melee agility Hero fitting the role of hard carry. Mortred is best-known, and infamous for, her ability to inflict staggering damage with single strikes. Her abilities synergise supremely well with each other, rendering her an extremely formidable foe once she has acquired the items she requires. She is a very farm-dependent melee Hero, but she farms creeps with much more ease than many of her fellow carries, using her Stifling Dagger for last hitting. Besides eliminating the weakness most melee Heroes have in their farming, it also saves her from expending gold on important melee carry items like Quelling Blade. Her second ability, Phantom Strike, acts as both her escape and initiate, while Blur gives her an edge against other Heroes that depend on their physical attacks by evading them; giving her partial damage immunity to many carries. Her ultimate, the strongest critical strike in the game, is what connects Mortred with four-digit damage and what gives her a place amongst the very best support killers in the late game, since they usually fall instantly from the divine strike her ultimate provides. Mobile and able to fight back nearly every enemy that dares to face her, Mortred is a formidable foe that should never be underestimated, and with appropriate item choices and a few kills, she can snowball out of control and become next to impossible to stop.

Recommended items
Starting items:
 * and s provide basic regen to stay in lane and continue farming despite enemy harassment. Given that Phantom Assassin is an agility melee carry who must close in to get last-hits, regen is important to ensure that she can survive the early game and transition smoothly into farming by herself.
 * es give a very cost-effective increase to Phantom Assassin's attributes, and can be built into a Magic Wand.
 * helps reduce harass damage taken from lane opponents, increasing survivability.
 * can be crucial for increasing Phantom Assassin's farming ability in the early game. Being able to last-hit more easily and kill neutral camps faster allows her to farm the items she needs to start becoming effective in a match.

Early game:
 * are important to obtain early on. Phantom Assassin must be able to easily move in and out of range to last-hit, as well as chase or escape as needed without having to rely as much on.
 * provides increased damage block, and additional agility for more base damage and armor. It can greatly improve Phantom Assassin's lane survivability and aid in getting last-hits.
 * An early can greatly improve Phantom Assassin's survivability and effectiveness in the early game. It provides a small amount of attributes and tremendous charge storage for burst health and mana regen, both of which are crucial on an agility hero with low strength and intelligence.
 * is crucial to carry at all times. As a hard carry, Phantom Assassin is the linchpin of her team, and her absence in teamfights can be greatly detrimental to her team's chances of victory.
 * is a strong stat item that greatly aids Phantom Assassin in the early game. It provides agility and bonus damage to improve Phantom Assassin's last-hitting power, and the flat mana regen aura replenishes a larger fraction of Phantom Assassin's pitiful mana pool than it does for other heroes, allowing her to utilize her spells more regularly.

Core items:
 * boosts Phantom Assassin's combat effectiveness and survivability greatly. The extra attack speed increases her damage output, whether it is for attacking heroes or creeps; with greater attack speed comes more chances for proccing . Attribute switching is very important, as it can be switched to strength for more health, agility for more damage output, or intelligence for using spells, particularly for repeated casting of.
 * gives Phantom Assassin many strong benefits. The armor helps increase her resistance to physical damage, the health regen and lifesteal allow her to maintain her health outside of teamfights, and the extra damage improves her combat effectiveness. The ability to dominate a creep allows her to provide aura bonuses to herself, add an extra nuke or disable to fights, and always have a Phantom Strike target to use for escape. As well, it can also be used to remotely stack Ancient camps, increasing her gold gain.
 * gives Phantom Assassin much-needed spell immunity, allowing her to ignore enemy disables and nukes as she directly engages enemies in fights. The extra health helps increase survivability, while the damage improves attack power.

Situational items:
 * can be situationally useful over Power Treads depending on how they are utilized. The bonus damage helps with last-hitting and increases the potency of Coup de Grace, while the extra movement speed allows Phantom Assassin to more easily chase down enemies or flee when both Phantom Strike and Stifling Dagger cannot be relied on.
 * is a strong item for allowing Phantom Assassin to secure her ability to farm into the late game. The damage and cleave allow her to easily clear bunches of creeps, whether it is for farming or pushing/counter-pushing, while the health and mana regen ensure that she can always maintain her health and mana pools while farming.
 * , upgraded from Helm of the Dominator, greatly improves Phantom Assassin's presence in teamfights. The extra strength improves her health pool, greatly increasing her survivability, while its active allows her to take advantage of Coup de Grace to quickly refill her health in the middle of battle if the enemy manage to reduce her health down enough.
 * can be crucial for giving Phantom Assassin the lockdown and damage she needs to quickly eliminate key opponents in fights. The bash gives her a chance to stun an enemy after jumping on them with Phantom Strike, while the active allows her to instantly hard-disable any foe through spell immunity, long enough to bring them down with Coup de Grace. It also increases her survivability giving bonus health and health regeneration and blocking 40 damage from incoming attacks.
 * greatly boosts Phantom Assassin's damage output, as well as providing additional evasion. While stacking it alongside runs the risk of having both nullified by the enemy building Monkey King Bar, purchasing a Butterfly can punish certain lineups by forcing their heroes to purchase Monkey King Bar over a different item that synergizes better with their strengths. As well, Butterfly's active allows Phantom Assassin to more easily chase or flee in circumstances where Phantom Strike proves impossible to use.
 * is useful as a utility substitute over Helm of the Dominator. It provides many of the same bonuses, but despite its higher cost, it is not registered as a Unique Attack Modifier, giving Phantom Assassin the option to purchase one that synergizes better with Stifling Dagger.
 * is a situationally useful damage item to build in order to counter enemy evasion. As well, the increased damage and attack speed are one of the best options for increasing Phantom Assassin's damage output as she does not benefit as much comparatively from building a Daedalus due to her ultimate.
 * greatly increases Phantom Assassin's damage output through more attack speed as well as the enemy armor reduction aura. The improved armor also greatly increases her survivability against physical damage, and the aura helps give teammates more armor and attack speed as well, which can be very useful depending on team composition.
 * is a useful purchase in the laning stage that helps Phantom Assassin to secure kills alongside her team. Combined with Stifling Dagger, it can reduce an enemy's movement speed by up to 62% from long range.
 * is useful for allowing Phantom Assassin to fight earlier instead of attempting to farm for extended periods of time. Its easy buildup allows it to be purchased quickly, and it provides all-around attributes, particularly strength and intelligence to boost Phantom Assassin's health and mana pools. The aura increases her movement and attack speed, allowing her to be more mobile in fights, and the active is a powerful combat booster that gives her and her team an edge in teamfights.
 * can be a strong mid-game purchase in order to give Phantom Assassin some lockdown once she has acquired enough attack speed. Jumping on top of an enemy with Phantom Strike can give her a chance to stun enemies, stopping them in their tracks while Phantom Assassin continues to damage them. The extra strength gives her some more health for survivability, while the damage increases the potency of Coup de Grace.
 * is a useful utility mid-game item that can be built relatively easily. It allows Phantom Assassin to apply the armor debuff from long range with Stifling Dagger, softening up multiple targets for her team and for her own attacks. The damage boost also greatly improves the killing power of Coup de Grace, particularly when combined with the armor reduction on enemies that Phantom Assassin jumps on.
 * is a situationally strong utility damage item in Phantom Assassin's hands. It boosts her agility and intelligence, giving her more damage output and mana, and the active can remove buffs from enemies while greatly slowing them for her to jump on. The active can also be useful for purging debuffs off of Phantom Assassin herself, or allies who have been inflicted with crippling debuffs.
 * is a situationally powerful mid-game item that is easy to farm and allows Phantom Assassin to begin participating in teamfights earlier. The agility and strength-based bonuses give her more damage output and health, while the movement speed makes her far more mobile, allowing her to chase and escape far more easily. Greater Maim can slow enemies down and prevent them from running away from her, and has a chance to proc with Stifling Dagger as well, potentially slowing an enemy by up to 82% movement speed.
 * is a powerful carry item and can greatly boost Phantom Assassin's combat effectiveness. It grants stats across the board, giving Phantom Assassin more health, mana and base damage. The Unique Attack Modifier can be used alongside lifesteal, and allows Phantom Assassin to slow enemies with her attacks and Stifling Dagger, greatly reducing their movement speed and preventing them from easily escaping her.
 * is a very rarely built item, but can be used for double Satanic active, refreshing the cooldown of, and other uses.

Trivia

 * Mortred is derived from Mordred, a character in the Arthurian legend who betrayed and fought King Arthur at the Battle of Camalann.
 * "Coup de grâce" is a French term (pronounced "coo d'grahss") which literally means "blow of mercy", and refers to the killing blow of a wounded person or animal, friendly or not, to end their suffering.
 * Mortred's level-up line Phass level 06.mp3 "I'm an immaterial girl!" is probably a reference to the song Material Girl performed by Madonna.
 * In DotA: Allstars, Blur caused Mortred to become transparent, scaling with levels and making her nearly invisible and untargetable to unexperienced players, thus her title "Phantom Assassin".
 * Mortred's idle animation is a typical fencing stance, with perpendicular feet, one arm extended forth and the other one folded and up in the air. However, her weapon is wielded not with the extended arm, but with the arm at rest.
 * Mortred is featured in the Dota 2 comic, The Contract.

Gameplay
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Audio
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History
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