TW Item build Q's

I have been arguing with a friend about building certain items on Troll Warlord; personally I think HoD is better than Vlad on Troll also he thinks that Power Treads are better than Phase Boots, and too conclude he thinks that Diffusal Blade is useful on Troll, personally I think that you are better off building daedalus.
What is better and are there any suggestions?

Phase since he has a 2 built in AS steriods and daedalus since you are attacking so frequently you get a bunch of crits and its more straight up damage. Lifesteal item depends, if you have to range form a bit, go for HoD but if you have other melee attackers and are in melee form go vlads. The aura is really nice.

Phase is definitely better than Treads for that unobstructed movement as well as the extra damage for early game last hitting. HoD - especially if you have the presence of mind to stack for yourself. Diffusal Blade is a waste of money and a stupid stack of UAMs on top of lifesteal. Go for Butterfly, Daedalus, MKB, Shadow Blade, BKB, etc etc.

Great thanks for clearing that up! However I have one question PeachFuzz... why MKB? I generally spend most of my time in melee mode after level 11 so how is that useful when Troll has a built in bash damage though not as much and the never missing effect is only useful if you're versing PA or others that build evasion items.

+88 Damage (+100 a third of the time) as well as the fact that you only have a 10% chance to Bash with Melee Form, whereas 35% from MKB is more reliable for stopping Channelling Abilities.

I agree with the others about Phase Boots, but I personally prefer Vladmir's Offering to get lifesteal: he's actually one of the very few Heroes that benefits from a "rushed" Vlad's, since he can deal burst physical damage and doesn't have the cleave ability to farm stacked ancients with a Helm of the Dominator. You shouldn't be hitting in ranged form anyway, and the extra damage and regen that come with a Vlad's (including the aura) are more than enough to justify it.

The MKB is generally the best item for physical DPS: the bash from it is negligible, but the true strike is needed most of the time unless playing versus a STR carry that doesn't build evasion, in which case the Daedalus is better.

Phase Boots is pretty clearly the best boot choice, looks like everyone agrees on that.

I don't really like Helm of the Dominator: it's generally picked up to dominate a creep and stack ancients - however, Troll can't clear big stacks like a Gyro/Luna/DK, so IMO it's not worth it.

Vladmir's Offering is usually better, the aura adds to what Troll does bets (5-man team pushes), and you don't want to go for greedy 5k+ items as you're not a hard carry and you want to end the game ASAP.

Black King Bar is the core, it's pretty much a 100% pickup and your first big item. Once you get this (should be around 20 minutes) it's time to start pushing.

thanks for the clarification! this helps a lot and I will "remind" my friend what is better for Troll.

Black King Bar is very core on him. Similar to other 'burst' dpsers he can easily be stopped by disables. But with Avatar up you can simply run in and deal a lot of damage in short time without really anyone able to stop you, especially with Vlads.