Terrorblade

I like to compare terrorblade's laning stage to anti mage and spectre.

All 3 can do a lot of damage if given space with desolate, mana break and metamorphosis, but they are also bad at making that space themselves and can be punished hard if not protected.
You can look at 3 things.
1: can he do a lot of damage if given space?
2: how good is he at making that space?
3: how good is he at a 1 vs 1 matchup?

1: Terrorblade can do the most reliable damage becouse it is always up and ranged. But he is dependant on a short duration with a long cooldown.
Anti mage has the mana burn which is not the most damaging skill but is is consistent as long as the enemy has mana.
Spectre does really high damage and is especially good against heroes with high armor i since the pure damage doesnt care about that. But it is only active when there are no units close to the enemy.

2: terrorblade is the best at making the space becouse of his slow and high movespeed, but often he still needs setup becouse of its low cast range.
Anti mage is the worst at making space for himself, since he has no crowd controll and can only blink to get 1 or 2 more attacks off.
Spectre has the highest initiaton range with dagger, but it is not that great of a slow, and has not much followup.

3: terrorblade is decent at 1 v 1, but depends on high metamorphosis cooldown, is really squishy and has no escape, so he either does good, or gets stomped by a stronger laner.
Anti mage is pretty good at 1 v 1, he has a great escape, and keeps the opponents mana pool low so they cant do much to kill him. He is still weak against strong and agressive laners though.
Spectre has a decent semi escape, but has low base damage and is generally bad at 1 v 1.


TL:DR
All 3 either do good or really bad and decent is usually no option, but with some nuances, terrorblade is best at doing decent, but can still be outlaned by stronger laning hard carries like naga.

I prefer to think of Terrorblade as a tankier PL with less illusions. He can literally chew through towers with him and his illusion in morph form. Add Manta into the mix and he can pretty much chew through a lane before most pub teams have a chance to react. One of his biggest weaknesses is that he doesn't have an ability escape or initiator.

He pretty much falls in the same boat as Ursa and Lifestealer. He has to rely on the team for the initiate and to help him escape.

Tried Shadow blade, Blink dagger, and force staff to help with initiation but in the end hurts the usual gear builds I go for on him too much.

Yet Terrorblade can actually be a real danger early game to squishier hero's due to his mirror image/Morph combo.

Just my two cents on the matter.

I had a good time with TB yet. I had 4 games with him , won all and stomped 3 of them.
My opinion is he can get easily out of control in earlygame with the right support and enemies who dont have much cc. Otherwise i wouldnt pick him.
I had good experience with Power Treads into Yasha in the first 10 min with the help of some Mills and pushing Tower after the fight while meta is still active. The next item is Skadi if doing well or Bkb. I think lifesteal(Hotd into Satanic) is wasted gold until lategame as 6th slot.

Too bad TB will never be top tier. PL is a better illusion carry. Naga brings better CC as an illusion carry. Dragon Knight is a better tower sieger and has better CC.

Even though I think TB is by far one of the best looking heroes in the game.

soul keeper has much stronger illusions than either Phantom Lancer or Naga Siren. He won't see Competative play because his base Str and starting health are too damn low, lvl 1 Venomancer hits him with gale and he's already zoned out. Naga Siren is great because of her utility, but her ultimate can also lose games, Alliance screwed up one Song of the Siren and Navi bounced back and won the game. PL is all but gone from the scene too, I think I've seen 1 pro game with him, and it was mid vs a naga.
Also, hes just not viable in the current meta, he has no chance against Timbersaw in lane, Bristleback eats him etc.
He's a great hero, and he's much deadlier than the other illusion carries late, just doesn't fit the aggressive meta.

Don't kid me. Terrorblade has one of the strongest illusions. 1st is Chaos Knight, than comes Terrorblade. And Terrorblade is the fastest pusher in the game thanks to his Agility 22 + 3.2 per level and Metamorphosis.

I don't think you get it: illusion-based carries are simply not suited for the current meta. Think about all the Crystal Maiden, Venomancer, Slark, Bristleback, Timbersaw and Nature's Prophet picks: they all have at least one AoE skill, and spotting the right Hero is super easy.

About the illusion-based carries you listed: Naga Siren is usually taken as a #2 role (or #1 with a mid that scales into late game like Shadow Fiend or Templar Assassin) because he's played, much like Lone Druid, as a dedicated split pusher with Radiance; Chaos Knight is never seen unless picking an Io, and even then you can still choose Tiny if you want to be sure you'll be able to outcarry the enemies ( Craggy Exterior does a lot). I won't even explain why Phantom Lancer and Spectre are never (or very rarely, talking about Spectre) picked, since it's so obvious.

Terrorblade actually has good early game damage, so he does more than your average illusion-based Hero, but since his abilities don't scale well he's basically a weaker version of a Luna with a Manta Style.

I had 2 failed attempts to play him, both ended up with a possitive score though (TIME TO BOAST).It freaking sucked, could not do **** because my team lost all the rest of the lanes while I pushed down bot.20 mins into the game I had gotten the rax, but we still lost.

Just to throw my two cents in, I think TB is yet another farm dependent hero that won't change the way games are played. A lot of recent heroes( Ember Spirit, Legion Commander, and TB) all have great uses in different situations, but aren't going to change the meta like (in my humble opinion) a Pit Lord or even stupid goblin techies would. TB is fun to play, I like him, he looks great, he can push towers, but you still deal with him the way you do must other farming heroes.

What about Phoenix or, if he's still viable, Earth Spirit?