Phantom Assassin

Hero

 

Strategy

 

Equipment

 

Gear

 

Talents

 

Relics

 

Responses

 

Sounds

 

Animations

 

Lore

 

Old Abilities

 

Changelogs

 

Known Bugs

 

Phantom Assassin #80 19 + 2 21 + 3.4 15 + 1.7
Level 0 1 15 25 30 Health 120 538 1154 1858 2122 +1 +2.9 +5.7 +8.9 +10.1 Mana 75 255 531 879 1011 +0 +0.75 +1.94 +3.39 +3.92 Armor 1 4.5 12.43 20.1 23.27 Magic Resist 25% 26.5% 28.88% 31.78% 32.83% Damage Block 16 (50%) Damage 31 33 52 54 99 101 145 147 164 166 Attack Rate 0.59/s 0.71/s 0.99/s 1.26/s 1.37/s Attack Range 150 (600) Attack Speed ▶️ 100 (1.7s BAT) Attack Animation 0.3 + 0.7 Projectile Speed Instant Move Speed ▶️ 310 ( 340) Turn Rate 0.8 Collision Size 27 Bound Radius 24 Vision Range (G) 1800 ( 800) Gib Type Default Internal npc_dota_hero_phantom_assassin

Blinks onto her foes with critical strikes.
Of all the assassins raised by the Sisters of the Veil, only one is known by name: Mortred. Through meditation and prophecy, the order identifies the next target to die at her hands. Attacks miss against the Phantom Assassin as she Blurs into her surroundings, traversing undetected across the land to catch her victims unaware. She opens the encounter with a Stifling Dagger, thrown from the shadows, then leaps upon the crippled target to deliver a flurry of Phantom Strikes, followed by a Fan of Knives hurled into all directions. Without warning, any one of her attacks could be the Coup de Grâce, leaving behind only the blood-splattered ground as testament to her efficiency.
Roles:	Carry Escape
Complexity:
Adjectives:	Cape, Female, Nose Legs ( 2 )

Bio

Mortred, the Phantom Assassin

▶️ "I'm here to blur the line between life and death."

Lore:

Through a process of divination, children are selected for upbringing by the Sisters of the Veil, an order that considers assassination a sacred part of the natural order. The Veiled Sisters identify targets through meditation and oracular utterances. They accept no contracts, and never seem to pursue targets for political or mercenary reasons. Their killings bear no relation to any recognizable agenda, and can seem to be completely random: A figure of great power is no more likely to be eliminated than a peasant or a well digger. Whatever pattern the killings may contain, it is known only to them. They treat their victims as sacrifices, and death at their hand is considered an honor. Raised with no identity except that of their order, any Phantom Assassin can take the place of any other; their number is not known. Perhaps there are many, perhaps there are few. Nothing is known of what lies under the Phantom Veil. Except that this one, from time to time, when none are near enough to hear, is known to stir her veils with the forbidden whisper of her own name: Mortred.

Aliases:

PA, Mortred

Voice:

Gin Hammond (Responses)

Abilities

Stifling Dagger

▶️▶️QD

Ability
Target Unit / Passive

Affects
Enemies / Self

Damage
Instant Attack

Throws a dagger slowing the enemy unit's movement speed, dealing 30%/45%/60%/75%+65/70/75/80 of Phantom Assassin's attack damage as physical damage and applying attack effects from items and abilities.

Passive Component

Coup de Grace Proc Chance: 34% ( 41%)

Cast Animation: 0.3+0.47

Cast Range: 700/850/1000/1150

Number of Targets: 1 ( 3)

Instant Attack Damage: 30%/45%/60%/75% ( 50%/65%/80%/95%)

Attack Damage Bonus: 65/70/75/80

Move Speed Slow: 50%

Slow Duration: 2.2/2.8/3.4/4

 Secondary Target Range Buffer: 300

 6 ( 4)

 30

Spell Block / Reflection Notes:

Blocked upon impact.

Blocked upon impact as primary or secondary target.

Modifiers [?]

modifier_projectile_vision

Undispellable

modifier_phantom_assassin_stiflingdagger_caster

Undispellable

modifier_phantom_assassin_stiflingdagger

Any

The first skill learned by the Sisters of the Veil often signals an incoming hit.

• The Stifling Dagger travels at a speed of 1200.

• Upon projectile hit, the dagger has a 34% ( 41%) chance to proc the Coup de Grace buff and causes Phantom Assassin to perform an instant attack on the target.
  • These instant attacks can proc any attack modifiers and on-hit effects normally (except Tidebringer). They have True Strike and completely ignore disarms.
  • Cleave effects are based on the target's position, damaging a trapezoid area in the opposite direction where the dagger came from.
  • Although the dagger may make it look like a ranged attack, the attack still counts as a melee attack when its coming from Phantom Assassin.
  • This causes all abilities (and items) that use different values for melee and ranged heroes (e.g. Skull Basher), to use their melee effects and values, not ranged.
  • If the caster is a ranged hero, the instant attacks do not use attack projectiles and are instant, but still count as ranged attacks.

• Stifling Dagger's instant attack first applies the self-total outgoing attack damage multiplier, then grants unique flat bonus attack damage upon the projectile hit.
  • The total attack damage includes all already existing attack damage changes, including conditional bonus sources (e.g. Bash and Quell).
  • This can be defined as
    expr
    ΣAtk × 30%/45%/60%/75% ( 50%/65%/80%/95%) + 65/70/75/80
  • Applies the bonus attack damage only to the Stifling Dagger projectile.
  • Therefore, attack damage based attack modifiers (e.g. critical strike, lifesteal, cleave) include the 30%/45%/60%/75% instant attack damage bonus as well.
  • Since the damage comes from a regular attack, it counts as attack damage and not as spell damage.
  • It is affected by damage block, but unaffected by spell damage amplification and cannot spell lifesteal.

• The projectile first applies the attack, then its own debuff.

• The projectile has 450 range flying vision that lingers for 3.34 seconds at the target's location upon successfully hitting it.

• Cannot be cast on Couriers.

• COSMETIC
  • Has a cast backswing of 0.67 with the Exile Unveiled equipped.
  • Has a cast backswing of 0.8 with the Manifold Paradox equipped.

• TALENT
  Stifling Dagger now launches 2 additional projectiles towards random visible valid targets within the range.
  • The search range is based on the cast range and the buffer range, resulting in a search range of 1000/1150/1300/1450.
  • The search range is centered around the primary target, not around Phantom Assassin, so when no other targets are nearby, nothing happens.
  • The secondary targets are chosen randomly within the area. There are no priorities. The projectiles cannot choose both the same target.
  • Since the additional projectiles use the ability's cast range, cast range-increasing effects increase their range as well.

Phantom Strike

▶️WB

Ability
Target Unit

Affects
Self

Teleports to a unit, friendly or enemy, and grants bonus attack speed while attacking if it's an enemy unit.

Cast Animation: 0.25+0.8

Cast Range: 1000 ( 1250)

Attack Speed Bonus: 100/130/160/190 ( 160/190/220/250)

Duration: 2.5 ( 3)

 11/9/7/5

 35/40/45/50

Spell Block / Reflection Notes:

When reflected, the caster first blinks next to the target, then the target blinks next to the caster.

Modifiers [?]

modifier_phantom_assassin_phantom_strike

Any

Mortred's silken veil is the last thing her unfortunate target sees.

• Phantom Strike can be cast on allied units, without gaining the Phantom Strike Buff.

• Moves Phantom Assassin next to the target, towards the position she was upon cast.
  • Counterspell does not reflect Phantom Strike. However, it is still blocked.

• Does not disjoint projectiles upon teleporting.

• Phantom Assassin is ordered to attack the target if it is an enemy, automatically canceling the cast backswing. Therefore, the cast backswing is only used when cast on ally units.
  • COSMETIC
    • Has a cast backswing of 0.1 on allies with the Exile Unveiled equipped.
    • Has a cast backswing of 0 with the Manifold Paradox equipped.

• Cannot be cast on the following units:
  • Invulnerable and hidden units.
  • Couriers, wards and buildings.

Blur

▶️▶️ER

Ability
No Target / Passive

Affects
Self

Phantom Assassin focuses inward, increasing her ability to evade enemy attacks. Can be activated to blur her body, causing her to be impossible to see until near enemy heroes.

Passive Component

Evasion: 20%/30%/40%/50% ( 45%/55%/65%/75%)

 Current Cooldowns Skip per Kill: 100%

Cast Animation: 0.4+0.67 (  0+0)

Vanish Dispel Radius: 500

Vanish Fade Time: 0

Vanish Dispel Delay: 0.5

Vanish Duration: 30

 60/55/50/45 ( 30/27.5/25/22.5)

 50

Aghanim's Scepter Upgrade:

Causes Blur to have instant cast time and applies a dispel. Any time Phantom Assassin gets a hero kill, her abilities are refreshed. Reduces Blur's cooldown.

Break Notes:

Resetting basic abilities upon making a kill is not disabled.

Modifiers [?]

modifier_phantom_assassin_blur

Undispellable

modifier_phantom_assassin_blur_active

Death

Ability Draft Notes:

Blur replenishes 1 charge to charge-based abilities upon resetting cooldowns.
This is not limited to Phantom Assassin's basic abilities.

Meditation allows a Veiled Sister to carefully anticipate her opponents in combat.

• Interrupts Phantom Assassin's channeling abilities upon cast.

• Turns Phantom Assassin invisible with True Sight immunity.
  • Does not grant phased movement.
  • Neither prevents being revealed by Chronosphere nor prevents being exposed.
    • Despite being revealed or exposed, Phantom Assassin is still not visible on the minimap.

• Attacking or casting abilities do not break the invisibility.

• The effect is dispelled when getting within 500 range of an enemy hero, clones and/or an enemy building, including enemy Outposts.
  • This includes when the enemy hero is invulnerable and hidden.
  • Treat illusions and creep-heroes as creeps.
  • The effect is not dispelled instantly, but 0.5 seconds after getting within range.
  • Getting out of range during that delay does not prevent it from dispelling. The delay does not serve as a grace period.
  • The effect is also dispelled when attacking Roshan, not instantly, but after the dispel delay.

• The passive evasion and the active component are independent of each other.
  • Evasion uses pseudo-random distribution.
  • Stacks diminishingly with other evasion sources.
  • Increases Phantom Assassin's survivability against physical attacks by 25%/43%/67%/100% ( 82%/122%/186%/300%).

• COSMETIC
  Has a cast backswing of 0.8 with the Manifold Paradox equipped.

• SCEPTER
  Blur now has an instant cast time.
  • Blur now first applies the invisibility, then the basic dispel on Phantom Assassin upon cast.
  • Resets the current cooldowns of all of her basic abilities as long as the kill credit is given to Phantom Assassin, regardless of how the kill was made, this includes the following kill conditions:
    • Killing the hero with Reincarnation.
    • Killing an ally hero.
    • Self denying with lethal self-damage sources (e.g. Life Drain etc.).
  • Neither reset ultimate abilities nor item abilities.
  • The cooldown resetting is bound to Blur as well. If not learned, kills do not reset her cooldowns.

• SCEPTER
  The Ability Upgrade also passively reduces the cooldown of Blur by 50%.
  • Stacks multiplicatively with other sources of percentage-based cooldown reduction sources, and is calculated after all flat cooldown reduction values.

Fan of Knives

▶️▶️DF

Ability
No Target

Affects
Enemies

Damage
Physical

Phantom Assassin releases sharp blades around her, dealing a percentage of each victim's max health on impact and applying Break.

Cast Animation: 0.15+0.9

Radius: 550

Max Health as Damage: 28%

Debuff Duration: 3

 15

 50

Modifiers [?]

modifier_phantom_assassin_fan_of_knives_thinker

Undispellable

modifier_phantom_assassin_fan_of_knives

Any

Ability Draft Notes:

Requires drafting Coup de Grace to be unlocked.

• Requires Aghanim's Shard to be unlocked.

• Applies Break on hit enemies.

• Despite the visual effect, Fan of Knives releases a single pulse that expands outwards, hitting all enemies as it reaches them.
  • The released daggers only have a visual purpose, the pulse affects all enemies it catches, regardless of the number of visible daggers.

• The pulse spreads at a speed of 1000 and takes 0.55 seconds to reach max range.
  • The area of effect is centered around the cast location, it does not move along with the caster.

• The pulse is not a ring. It affects every enemy within its expanding area of effect.
  • This means it is not possible to avoid the effect by blinking over the daggers/pulse toward the caster.

• Fan of Knives first applies the debuff, then the damage.

• Fully affect Couriers.

Coup de Grace

▶️▶️RC

Ability
Passive

Affects
Self / Enemies

Phantom Assassin refines her combat abilities, acquiring a chance of gaining Deadly Focus with each attack. When attacking with Deadly Focus, Phantom Assassin will consume the buff and guarantee a critical hit. Stifling Dagger has a bonus chance to cause Deadly Focus.

Buff Proc Chance: 17% ( 24%)

Critical Damage: 200%/325%/450%

Buff Duration: 6

Stifling Dagger Cast

Buff Proc Chance: 34% ( 41%)

Aghanim's Shard Upgrade:

New Ability

Grants the Fan of Knives ability.

Break Notes:

Disables the buff proc chance. Does not disable the next attack from proccing critical strike from the existing buff.

Illusion Notes:

Critical strike values shown are before illusion outgoing damage and armor reduction.

Modifiers [?]

modifier_phantom_assassin_coupdegrace

Undispellable

modifier_phantom_assassin_mark_of_death

Death

A divine strike, Mortred honors her opponent by choosing them for death.

• Increases attack damage by an average of 17%/38.25%/59.5% ( 24%/54%/84%).
  • Stifling Dagger procs increase attack damage by an average of 34%/76.5%/119% ( 41%/92.25%/143.5%).

• The buff proc is determined during Phantom Assassin's attack point.
  • When a buff procs, Phantom Assassin uses a specific attack animation, and particle effects appear on her weapon.

• Neither procs nor critical strikes against allied units, buildings or wards.

• Upon proccing, Phantom Assassin receives a buff, which grants a critical strike on the next attack.
  • The attack that consumed the buff may also proc another buff instance, making consecutive critical strikes possible.
  • Missed attacks do not consume the buff.
  • Attacking against allied units, buildings and wards will consume the buff.
  • Attacking against items and runes will not comsume the buff.

• If another source of critical strike procs on the same attack as Coup de Grace, the crit with the higher multiplier takes priority.

• Coup de Grace uses pseudo-random distribution.

Talents

Hero Talents
Triple Strike Stifling Dagger	25	+7% Coup de Grace chance
+60 Phantom Strike Attack Speed	20	+20% Stifling Dagger Damage
+250 Phantom Strike Cast Range	15	+25% Blur Evasion
-2s Stifling Dagger Cooldown	10	+0.5s Phantom Strike Duration

Recent Changes

Main Articles: Changelogs, Old Abilities and Hero Lore

Version

Description

7.35c

• Increased Agility gain from 3.2 to 3.4.
• Increased Stifling Dagger Cast Range from 550/750/950/1150 to 700/850/1000/1150.

7.35b

• Increased Stifling Dagger attack damage from 25/40/55/70% to 30/45/60/75%.
• Increased Phantom Strike bonus attack speed from 80/110/140/170 to 100/130/160/190.
• Increased Blur active duration from 25s to 30s.
• Aghanim's Shard upgrade:
  • Fan of Knives
    • Increased max health as damage from 25% to 28%.

7.35

• Increased intelligence gain from 1.4 to 1.7.
• Increased base movement speed from 305 to 310.
• Phantom Strike
  • No longer grants 10%/15%/20%/25% lifesteal bonus for its buff duration.
  • Increased buff duration from 2 to 2.5.
• Aghanim's Shard upgrade:
  • Fan of Knives
    • Changed
      damage type from Pure to Physical.
    • Increased max health as damage from 16% to 25%.

Recommended Items

Starting items:

• Tango provides health regeneration to help Phantom Assassin stay in lane and continue farming despite enemy harassment.

• Healing Salve restores health as well.

• Iron Branches give cost-effective increase to Phantom Assassin's attributes, and can builds into Magic Wand.

Early game:

• Quelling Blade increases 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.

• Boots of Speed 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 Phantom Strike.

• Magic Wand 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.

• Wraith Band is a good pickup if you plan on staying in lane for a long time. Otherwise, it should not be picked up to not delay the timing of Power Treads and Battle Fury.

Mid game:

• Power Treads boost Phantom Assassin's combat effectiveness and survivability greatly with added agility and attack speed. She can attribute switch to strength for more health, or intelligence for using spells, particularly for the repeated casting of Stifling Dagger.

• Battle Fury allows Phantom Assassin to secure her ability to farm into the late game. The damage and cleave allow her to easily clear 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.

• Desolator 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 and armor reduction also greatly improve the killing power of Coup de Grace.

• Black King Bar gives Phantom Assassin much-needed spell immunity, allowing her to jump into fights and put out damage without fear of being disabled.

• Skull Basher procs very easily from Phantom Strike's attack speed boost and can be procced by Stifling Dagger at long range, letting Phantom Assassin lock down targets with her attacks.

Late game:

• Abyssal Blade improves Phantom Assassin's durability and grants a guaranteed stun through debuff immunity, giving her even more lockdown on top of the bash carried over from Skull Basher.

• Satanic improves Phantom Assassin's survivability in team fights, allowing her to quickly refill health with Coup de Grace crits.

Situational items:

• Orb of Corrosion can help Phantom Assassin trade hits more effectively if forced to fight early on with the armor reduction, slow, and health bonus.

• Butterfly greatly boosts Phantom Assassin's damage output, as well as providing additional evasion. While stacking it alongside Blur 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.

• Nullifier gives a good boost to damage and can shut down enemies reliant on dispellable buffs.

• Monkey King Bar counters enemy evasion and boosts Phantom Assassin's damage output with increased attack damage.

• Sange and Yasha is a situationally powerful mid-game item that is easy to farm and allows Phantom Assassin to begin participating in team fights 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.

• Manta Style can be a useful item to dispel annoying disables, particularly, roots and silences. Additionally, the two illusions can use Coup de Grace and deal tremendous damage, and the stats the item gives are incredibly useful on Phantom Assassin. To add to this, one illusion can be kept behind Phantom Assassin, preferably in the trees, allowing her to Phantom Strike away to safety.

• Eye of Skadi can boost Phantom Assassin's combat effectiveness. It grants attributes across the board, giving Phantom Assassin more health, mana, and base damage. Cold Attack passive allows Phantom Assassin to slow enemies with her attacks and Stifling Dagger, reducing their movement speed and preventing them from easily escaping her.

Dota Plus Progress

Main Article: Hero Challenges

Relics track a hero's actions and statistics, and display in-game notifications when a milestone is reached. They are only available to Dota Plus subscribers.

Relics	Voice Lines
Crit Stifling Daggers Stifling Dagger Last Hits Phantom Strike Kills Coup de Grace Crit Damage Stuns Leading To Kills Kills During Black King Bar Bashed Enemies Slows Leading To Kills Battle Fury Cleave Damage Godlike Sprees Triple Kills Mega Kill Streaks Kill Assists Kills	Bronze	▶️ Ho ho ho ho ho ha ha ha! ▶️ Mmm, divine.
	Silver	▶️ All according to plan. ▶️ Death at my hands is an honor.
	Gold	▶️ That went well, I think. ▶️ How many daggers am I holding up?
	Platinum	▶️ Ha, ahhh, ha ha, no no no.
	Master	▶️ I'm an immaterial girl!
	Grandmaster	▶️ Something in your eye?

Equipment

Phantom Assassin Equipment (expand sets) Personas Exile Unveiled Sets Bane of the Deathstalkers Bloodroot Guard Capricious Fate Creeping Shadow Cruel Reprisal Dame de Carreau Dark Wraith Set Darkfeather Factioneer Dragonterror Dread of the Gleaming Seal Set Gothic Whisper Nimble Edge Set Penumbral Vesture Set Raiments of the Eventide Raiments of the Sacrosanct Ravening Wings Toll of the Fearful Aria Valkyrie's Shade Visions of the Lifted Veil Weapon Blade of Misery Deathwielder Evildoer Exquisite Doubled Axe of the Veil Gloomblade Hell's Guide Hell's Usher Lament of the Slain Manifold Paradox Scythe of Sacrifice Seven-edged Blade Solace of Divinity Twinblade of the Veil Head Codicil of the Veiled Ones Shoulder Avowance of the Crimson Witness Avowance of the Veiled Ones Taunt Taunt: Deadly Grace

Trivia

• Mortred's name 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 "koo duh gras") 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. The phrase originates from medieval times, specifically Knights (see above - Knights of the Round Table). When a combatant was gravely injured (in battle, duels, jousting, etc...) but not killed; a coup de grâce was often, although not always, performed. Traditionally a rondel dagger was used as this could make a small puncture in breastplate and was long enough to reach the heart.

• ▶️ "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 to the enemy, scaling with levels and making her nearly invisible and untargetable to inexperienced players, thus her title "Phantom Assassin". This aspect of the ability is replicated to a limited degree with Blur's active component in Dota 2.

• 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. There are treatises, at least for the Italian school of fencing, which do show an extended arm but this is exclusively used when wielding a rapier or other single-handed thrusting swords.

• Mortred is featured in the Dota 2 comic, The Contract.

• Fan of Knives is based on the "Fan of Knives" ability from the Warden from Warcraft 3, sharing its name and working in a similar way.
  • In DotA, Phantom Assassin also uses the Warden's hero model.

Gallery

• 

  Splash artwork

• 

  Early concept artwork

• 

  Early alpha model based on the early concept art

• 

  Leaked concept artwork

• 

  Early textures of the current model, featuring different color scheme

• 

  Ability icon progress

• 

  Hero icon progress

• 

  Phantom Assassin illustration