How good is Morphling at the moment

So I played a several Morphling games recently and I really liked the hero. He does a ton of damage and is really hard to kill. I played him often in the midlane however I've played him in the sidelanes too. I know Morphling isn't the most popular hero at the moment and he is considered as rather weak but I personally think that he is fine.

I have build several items on him: linken's phere, Manta Style, Ethereal Blade, Butterfly, Eye of Skadi just standard Morphling items and the hero did really well.

He has a really strong early game and is able to kill the enemy mid and this combined with decent gank abillieties he is fine mid. I have noticed that he does extremely well against quas wex Invokers.

I adapt my items on the game and even the shotgun build is still viable. It isn't as strong anymore as it used to be but it still does the damage.

Mostly I buy in this order Wraith Band, Bottle, brown boots, Ring of Aquila, another Wraith Band, Power Treads/ Boots of Travel (mostly treads) and Yasha. Than I see if I want an Ethereal Blade, if the answer is yes I get the E-blade, when the answer is no I finish my Manta Style. After I finished the manta I adapt from linken's phere, butterlfy,...

Btw I don't by Dragon Lance on him since it seems rather weak.

He's actually IMO one of the best if not the best best carry pick to play against Invoker in this patch. Can dodge literally anything Invoker can throw at him with both his Q and his ult. It works against both QW and QE invo, just mash Q when hit by tornado or blast essentially. Besides, you need the rat that Morph offers. Since there's no way you can teamfight into Invo, and he has no chance to solo kill Morph, you can rat the hell out of the game.

I even remember this game where I bought Blade Mail on Morph just to screw up an Invoker. Stand in meteor, morph strength, and you just dealt 4K damage to him before walking away like you don't care. Get rekt invoker picker :)

EDIT : Yes, I did win that game. Not because of the genius new meta blademail pickup though. Kappa.
I only bought it as a **** you invo picker item because I want them to pay. However Morph has up to 5K effective HP which potentially makes blademail Morph legit as hell.

did you win that game?

pls no linkens... BKB is reeeeeaally good on morphling....

also, try drums.

I don't get why so many people hate on Linken's Morphling. I wouldn't pick it up every game as a core item, but it provides good stats and the target block makes it pretty hard to bring him down for certain lineups. As a situational item Linken's is pretty strong imo.

Well I don't buy linkens every game on him, the last time i did it was against a Legion Commander. I never buy it as a first item but I sometimes get it later when I see will benefit from it.

About the Invoker, while I play morphling mid I had troubles against an exort Invoker since he would do a lot of rightclick damage and I wasn't able to trade effeciently with him mostly because he has a big range advantage. But against quas wex it is really easy to kill and Invoker.

Well yes Morph loses mid against QE Invoker. But then Morph isn't a mid hero right now, not after the bottle nerfs. Safelane Morph deals really well with Invoker, that was my point.

Morph is a good Linken's Sphere carrier, I don't think that's the question. Linkens allows him to rat without getting caught out. Blocks all the initiation skills that he should worry about, like lasso, duel, Pudge ulti, sheepsticks...
No, Linkens on Morph is good situationally, in the right game. I just have two big issues with linkens on Morph :
- Buying Linkens in Black King Bar games. If there's e.g Invoker, OD, Earthshaker and Lion in the enemy team, you don't waste a slot with useless linkens, you get a ******** BKB. Especially true if the enemy team has stuff like Track or Zeus's Q that can break linkens easily.
- Buying Linkens as a *first* item. That's the thing I have the biggest problem with. The whole point of linkens is that it protects you while you rat. But most of the stuff you want to block with it, like typically sheepsticks, abyssals, blink + hex or other stuns...doesn't come online until after the 30 minute mark! And the buildup of linkens on Morph is horrendous. Perseverance on Morph is a complete waste of gold, Morph doesn't need regen in the early game since he can heal up with his ult as soon as he hits 6. Waveform costs way too much mana so mana regen doesn't even help you farm until much later in the game when your INT is high. If you want cash just buy a midas, better than perseverance in every possible way.

I don't think people realize how game throwing it can be to go linkens first item on Morph. What's the biggest Morph counter in the game? Deathball lineups that 5-man all early-mid game and take your rax at the 25-30 minute mark. Morph is extremely weak at that specific moment, just after Waveform starts falling off as a nuke and while he still hits like a wet noodle. So let's say you're in the typical pub game : your team is feeding, the enemy team is 5-man pushing your rax, you're 25 minutes into the game and you can choose one late game item to stop the push in the best way you can. What's the best item to pick?
* Ethereal Blade : you combo one hero from full health with almost no risk. Push delayed or even stopped.
* Eye of Skadi : you wait for the enemy team to YOLO dive, jump a hero under your tower and right-click him with full AGI morphed while slowing him.
* Manta Style : the best DPS item on Morphling, gives you more right-click than anything else you can buy, and purges silence.
* Blade Mail : YOLO in with blademail on and morph strength if focused. Good value. Even a 2K gold item can have decent impact. Dragon Lance also as a value comeback item is pretty good. Hell, even a freaking dagon at least does something.
* Linken's Sphere : A purely defensive item, which is completely useless because the enemy team wants to kill your buildings and not you. You're really hard to focus and kill, that's for sure, you have 4 escape mechanisms and the linkens active. You're also completely useless in a fight, so you get completely ignored. The only thing a linkens Morph can do at that point is morph full strength and play support Morphling.

That's why when I go Linkens on Morph, I always buy it as a 2nd or typically 3rd item. After 2 of Eblade, Skadi, and manta, and/or midas and BoTs. It's infinitely better IMO in terms of timing windows. Maybe in 1 game out of 20 or something if there's a Pudge, LC and BM in the enemy team AND if the enemy team has no push it's good to rush linkens...but it really has to be that specific I think.

You are totally right about Linken's Sphere and this is for every hero who builds linkens: Medusa, Weaver, Morphling, Naga Siren Mirana,... It really destroys games and bkb is often better to get. Every time I have a dusa in mu game and she rushes Linken's Sphere she does nothing the first 30-40 minutes while dusa can be more active earlier.

Thing with Morphling is the Ethereal Blade, it is super strong but super weak at the same time. If you can hit it and get a kill with it it is amazing and definitly worth it.But often it doesn't work because of all those items that counter it. Glimmer Cape, Eul's Scepter of Divinity, Black King Bar, Lotus Orb,...

Also people tend to become pretty tanky these days even the supports so it becomes really hard to actually shotgun people. For this reason E-blade can be sometimes game winning but sometimes it is the direct reason of losing. While Butterfly and Eye of Skadi are way more trustable items which ensure that you can get kills, do damage, tank damage and push towers.

I have played against an Io and I wasn't able to kill him with my Ethereal Blade because of his great positioning but also because he had a Glimmer Cape around 1000-1200 hp and he knew how to toggle his Overcharge (which gives damage reduction for people who don't know Io). This made my E-blade purchase a waste since I bought it to take out the Io at the start of the teamfight.

Diffusal Blade is the item to get against wisp. Every single wisp ever buys a Glimmer Cape and a Ghost Scepter. Buy diffusal, purge both items, and just right click him. He has 0 armor.

Diffusal Blade is actually genious, thank you for broaching Diffusal Blade, the item seems actually really strong on Morphling since it gives a lot of agi, a little bit int, which never harms morp and the slow is actually really good to be able to stay right clicking people.

Ty