Last hitting help with Spectre? And lane choice?

Hey guys, I'm pretty new to DOTA 2, around 70 hours of gameplay, and only 24 pub games....and countless bot games lol

I've been trying to play Spectre lately, and getting last hits is VERY hard for me, the damage seems little and her attack animation is a bit too long!
Any tips on how I should be playing better? Getting what items on her etc early game?
I usually buy a stout shield/quelling blade, 2 tangoes and a salve
Anything else I should be buying?
Also what lane do I go with? I almost go solo mid with all the heroes I play with!

hey and welcome to dotafire (and dota in general)

first: lane choice (this is strictly for low-level 2-1-2 lane-setups)

mid: usually a good ganker or level dependent hero takes this lane. The solo exp and gold guarantee a strong midgame. Also you gank easily gank any of the 2 sidelanes and can utilize runes the most.
Common Midlaners: Queen of Pain, Zeus, Puck, Blood Seeker, Sniper ..etc.etc.

safelane: top for dire and bot for radiant. This lane usually is, were the hardcarry + support goes, as controlling the lane (with creep pulls for instance) is the easiest here. This provides a safe farming environment for your carry. this btw is the lane you want to go to, if you play heroes like Spectre
Common Safelaners: basically any hard carry + support.

offlane or hardlane: bot for dire and top for radiant. As you are opposing the enemies safelane duo, you would usually want to put heroes in this lane, that can disrupt the enemies farm. Aggressive laners and good harassers tend to work quite good here. If in a 2v1 situation (if your team has a jungler for instance) the "offlaner" should also have some kind of escape mechanism (as playing 2v1 is quite risky).
Common Offlaners: Weaver, Clockwerk, Windranger, Clinkz

as for the lasthitting:
to me it sounds like you simply lack experience and practice, as Spectre base damage is quite good and her attack-animation imo is one of the best in the entire game.

your starting build also is fine.

as for item progression you usually want to go for raw-stat increase on illusion based heroes (radiance-rush being the only exception). Therefor items like Drums of Endurance, Manta Style, heart of Terrasque or Diffusal Blade tend to work quite nicely.

Basically what L0bstz0r said. I don't find Spectre's damage that high though: last-hitting with her isn't that easy in my opinion, but with a Quelling Blade you should be able to get some farm until Phase Boots, which makes your early game damage much higher.

As for the item progression, I'd suggest to stay away from the Radiance since you'll never have enough time and farm to afford it early enough unless playing with friends (most of the time), so going for items that benefit your illusions as said above such as Drum of Endurance, Diffusal Blade, Manta Style and Heart of Tarrasque/ Eye of Skadi (usually in this order) is better.

Try not to go mid with Heroes that have poor lane control (i.e. no nukes) or supports, especially melees: carries like Faceless Void, Anti-Mage, Spectre, Lifestealer and Phantom Lancer would get shut down in little time, getting almost no farm. Also, the mid lane is usually played with Heroes that can go gank other lanes like Queen of Pain, Pudge, Bloodseeker, Timbersaw etc.

Spectre is a hard carry who needs to fight early using her ult becouse she farms pretty slow.
If you want to lasthit better get an early poormans shield. I usually also get phase boots for easier lasthits and chasing power.

But in the level of pubs that you play everyone picks hard carries like spectre who cant do anything by themselves.
So try to look into the different roles and lane positions and pick according to that.

L0bstz0r, Peppo_oPaccio and Timminator, thank you for your replies!
I follow the exact same build order as you guys mentioned, only without Radiance because is really expensive and not THAT much use IMO...
I think I'll need to practice more with Spectre, since she seems really promising, I find her abilities really interesting too...
I don't really know what else to say, haha
Thanks again!

This is probably the best thing you can do. If you enjoy playing Solo-Mid, grab a Ganker that can Snowball easily and try to destroy the other Team as quickly as possible.

These are good Heroes to try ( Bloodseeker is kinda iffy, and Sniper is useless as a Mid, he just wins games if the other Team are dumb enough to leave him alone). Puck might be a bit difficult at your level so Queen of Pain, Zeus, Viper and Death Prophet are your best options imo.

As for playing Spectre, pretty much what has been said above is true, except, I would change your Starting Items a bit.


I recommend these Items for starting, you need the Stats and Regen

In Lane, if you're having trouble Last Hitting, you can always pick up a Quelling Blade fairly quickly. If you're doing fine however, you can try to get a Hand of Midas by 8:00 for faster levels and Farming. Never get both though!

If your opponent is harrassing you a lot with abilities, get a Magic Stick, especially if you're against a Hero that can (and almost always will) Spam their Abilities, e.g. Skywrath Mage, Bristleback, Batrider, Lion, etc. The extra HP and Mana will help you survive your Lane. You can upgrade to a Magic Wand if you want, but that's a preference, not necessarily yours.

Poor Man's Shield is useful if you're getting right-clicked to death by Ranged Heroes, and also makes it a bit easier to Last Hit with the extra Agility.

These are the Items you want early on, I recommend Treads over Phase Boots since they suit your Illusions better, after that, there's the usual options (as sugested by others).

Sorry to say that, but you don't have enough money to get a Circlet: it's 185 more gold that makes the starting build worth 660, which is too much. I usually get the double Iron Branch: it's cheaper and you only waste 50 gold (after you sell them) at the end of the day.

I'll try that item build this time, @Xyrus!
I've played Puck though...he isn't that hard imo
I love all those other heroes you listed. They're fun to play
Sniper is boring.
Also I'm usually getting pwned by heroes like Drow, Enchantress, Viper etc
I hate their DPS!
Also getting Midas takes far too long, I've tried it on Lifestealer... can't save gold for so long. Because I usually end up getting ganked or just harassed to death by lane counter...lol XD
But, will try all of these recommendations, and post back here!
Also how do I..eh "tag" items and heroes on dotafire?
Edit- Oh and I forgot to mention, I've gotten much better at last hitting with her!
Also I hear there's some bug with Dispersion not granting gold and exp for killed creeps? O.o

No arguments here <}3

The best way to deal with Drow and Enchantress is to get close to them, since they both rely on keeping you at a distance to do any real Damage. If you have some sort of gap closer like Pounce, Leap, Blink or a Blink Dagger, Force Staff etc. you should find them easier to deal with. A Black King Bar also makes Bambi cry! 8{D

If, by that, you mean making Spectre -> Spectre, you type it like this...

Okay, will do so when I next encounter them :)
Also what about Viper? Vanguard? Or what else?