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 be impossible to stop.

Tips

 * Stifling Dagger has multiple uses. It should generally be the first ability maxed, as it allows you to last hit creeps from a distance. It also allows you to harass the enemy, though do be aware of the relatively high mana cost in the early game as Mortred has an extremely small mana pool.
 * If enemies have fallen back in lane to use a Clarity or a Healing Salve, Stifling Dagger can be used to disable the regeneration effects.
 * Phantom Strike can target both allies and enemies. Jumping to a friendly unit can be useful if Mortred needs to escape.
 * Mid-game, Phantom Strike can be spammed on creep waves and jungle camps in order to accelerate farm.
 * A single point in blur early on can be beneficial in the laning stage. It can be a good idea to max it in the early game if the enemy are being especially aggressive.
 * Choosing to build whether attack speed or attack damage is up to the player's decision. Building more attack speed increases the chance of Coup de Grace to proc, although the critical damage will not be too high. Building attack damage will greatly increase Mortred's damage, but attacking too slow will mean proccing Coup de Grace will be a rare event. Keep in mind that Mortred gains 3.15 agility per level, and that Phantom Strike increases Mortred's attack speed for a few moments. This means if you are scaling up well and you are higher level than your opponents, building attack damage is the better choice. If Mortred is underleveled due to constant ganks or the enemy having a lot of disables, building attack speed is better, so you can proc a few more critical hits before retreating or dying. Because of this, Phantom Strike can be used as an escape mechanism as opposed to damage output if it is not sufficient level to be use effectively.
 * Be careful when going up against heroes with heavy nukes, such as, or enemy carries who have a Monkey King Bar completed.
 * Be very wary of enemies using Blade Mail, as Mortred's damage output is many times greater than her health pool, though with a Black King Bar you can alleviate the issue if the enemy does build a Blade Mail.
 * While typically underfarmed supports are very juicy targets to prey on, if they have a Ghost Scepter, they can be immune to autoattacks for three seconds, which may bait you into poor spots.
 * During the early game, a highly leveled Blur coupled with a Poor Man's Shield will make Mortred extremely resistant to physical damage as she has naturally high base armor as well. Use this to your advantage by melee harassing enemies who lack burst magical damage, reliable escape mechanisms or powerful disables.
 * Getting an Empower buff from Magnus while having a Battlefury in your inventory will boost Mortred's cleave damage to 85%. Use this to completely destroy enemies who are closely grouped together!
 * Remember that Blur effect makes you invisible on the minimap when far from enemies, so is great in split push strategies, since they won't check the towers areas too often with the camera, so you can farm and push with more safety than other carries. Keep an eye on the Blur's buff icon to detect enemies coming at you.
 * When engaging enemy heroes, use Stifling Dagger first, then follow up with Phantom Strike. With sufficient damage items, just using Phantom Strike followed by a lucky crit can blow up squishies.
 * Though the typical path is to build a Battlefury as quickly as possible to improve her otherwise slow farm rate and thus begin farming until she has all her strong items from there on, it is generally better to move around the map and gank/participate in teamfights over simply farming the whole way through, especially if the enemies have magic nukes that are less powerful/useful at the beginning than later in the game, as then their primary source of power against you would be their right clicks and thus you can take advantage of Blur. Remember that Phantom Strike and Stifling Dagger become spammable very quickly and are great for chasing, so she can make a very solid ganker, especially if teammates around you have slows/stuns or abilities that allow you to chase better (like Sven's with its speed buff).
 * For reasons mentioned above, it is thus a much better choice to go for a Helm of the Dominator and/or Black King Bar (whatever the situation demands more) before Battlefury, as they will both grant Mortred much higher survivability than what is otherwise a simple farming tool ever could. If things go well, you will have no need for it unless facing off against illusion users (Like Phantom Lancer or Naga Siren).
 * Phantom Assassin actually makes a solid mid laner - With her Blur, a Poor Man's Shield and high armor, she can be incredibly durable to harassment, and gaining her ultimate as quickly as possible can give her as an extremely strong edge over her enemy as her DPS increases dramatically with it, and can usually net her easy solo kills against the heroes in the other lanes as they are very likely lower levelled and possibly less farmed than her.
 * Though typically you use Stifling Dagger for chasing in order to put them in Phantom Strike range, you can also throw the dagger first and blink in before the dagger lands in order to extend the duration that your enemy needs to spend next to you, as no moment of the slow is wasted.

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.