Need help with PA!!!

Hello guys, so I have been playing dota for about only 4 or 5 months, so I'm really a noob. PA is one of my favorite carries and I love playing with her, but, I have noticed that going for a Battlefury puts to much pressure on my team, so I have been trying the Maelstrom and I have to say that I love it. I want your opinions about this, is Maelstrom a good item on PA?
In several games I went for a Diffusal Blade+ Manta Style combo, what do you think about this? Those items can help PA or they are just no her thing.
I hope you guys can help me with this.

You generally don't want a pure farming item on PA because she's a supbar lategame carry. She relies on grabbing a lead, snowballing out of control and finishing early, because it's pretty easy to make her useless when you have farm on either cores( Monkey King Bar + some HP and Armor, Black King Bar to an extent) or supports( Solar Crest, Ghost Scepter, Glimmer Cape, Heaven's Halberd). You just eliminate them while they still got no response to a hero that jumps on them and eliminates them in seconds with rightclicks.

So BF is a very situational item for PA, probably not worth getting at all unless you face illusion heroes. On the other hand, Maelstrom synergizes very well with Phantom Strike and is basically a fighting+farming item for her. There are some major flaws, however:

1)It gives no sustain whatsoever and you are not SF to be able to jungle on a regular basis without sustain. If you add Helm to that, you spend more on it than on Battle Fury itself while still getting less farming speed(because you can spam Phantom Strike with Battle Fury the same way you spam Blink on Anti-Mage). If you can't spam Phantom Strike, you lose a lot of Mael's farming potential;

2)It makes you do nothing against BKB carriers. You can't jump on them and you can't lighning proc them to death. This build makes PA even weaker to BKB than she naturally is;

3)Makes Satanic pickup very sup-optimal because lightning overrides lifesteal which may result in a severe HP loss when you activate it;

4) Desolator just seems to be an overall better item for farming/fighting purposes. It is more expensive, but it gives hero both the farming speed( Quelling Blade + armor reduction + crit control work wonders) and a far superior killing potential(a PA with a sub-15 minutes Deso just tears heroes apart with one crit).


Can't say for sure because I'm not a PA expert actually and haven't tested that build, but I think there are more optimal items to buy for her in any situation. Every idea needs testing and I'm not gonna do it anyway.

Diffusal + Manta is great if enemy tries to counter you with Gay Scepter or there's Pugna in an enemy team(though why would you pick PA into Pugna), but other than that it's really not worth it - Pa doesn't need an additional slow and she is more of a raw damage/AS hero rather than a stat hero because she has pretty ****ty illusions with no chasing and the main AGI stat carry item( Butterfly) makes little sense on her.

PAs builds vary a lot, this is a good guide to her:
http://jjcm.org/blog/how_to_play_pa/
Covers all situation and all items you might need and tells you when to get them.

Hum I get the idea of an early Desolator+ Vladmir's Offering, but if I use that build I will fall pretty hard in the late game rigth? I just wanna know the downsides of the Desolator build. Other thing, if I'm going for the Desolator I should finish it first or I should build the Vlads first?

You fall off late game anyway, doesn't matter how you build, eventually you hit a point where you are relying on RNG in your BKB to do anything.

And Vlad's first usually; It does more for your team, and it gives you sustain for jungling.

What about a build around Sange and Yasha plus Helm of the Dominator? Sange and Yasha is a cheap damage item and besides it allows me to build Satanic later in the game. Also, what's your opinion about the use of Assault Cuirass. Makes you a little more tanky and the armor reduction and the attack speed boost makes you hit harder. I'm guessing that Butterfly is a no-no.
Black King Bar and Skull Basher are almost core in PA rigth?

Yep, as said above, Vlads Deso is really good. While Maelstrom is good, it does have a few weaknesses that have already been outlined.

I myself am a fan of the Medallion build, which I usually get before the Vlads Deso. It makes your physical damage early on a very, very scary prospect, especially if you get a bit lucky with crits.

Manta isn't too bad - situational, but it's not terrible, because illusions can crit and the Yasha is really good on PA (on which agi carry isn't it?). If you absolutely HAVE to go lategame with PA... well, it wasn't the best pick, but whatever, you're about as good as Anti-Mage in lategame. Manta Skadi is, I find, the best build to go on an agi hero you're trying to build as a hard carry, and it works on PA because she's got a decent damage steroid and very high AGI gain so the illusions do a fair bit of damage. But PA's advantage is her powerful early fighting, despite a vulnerability to nukes. And you'll struggle to outcarry a full-on hard carry like Spectre or Morphling.

Anyway, yes, Manta Skadi is good... on pretty much every carry ever, really. I haven't tried Diffusal, but it does eliminate Ghost Scepter. As a PA, look at the enemy team and think, 'what can they build to counter me, and what can I build to neutralise that?' This goes further than BKB.

Now, as for WHY PA falls off, which is a valid question consider you often hear her discussed as a hard carry - and in my opinion she is, just barely - it's a couple of factors (just in case you were curious :3)

A part of it is the fact that rich supports can easily deal with her. Ghost Scepter, Glimmer Cape, evasion if you haven't got MKB - it can be hard to lock down a target with those items on the enemy team. And since you can only switch targets on a 5-second cooldown, that causes problems, because your BKB duration lategame is... 5 seconds. And it gets there very, very quickly.

Another part that limits her is the unit-target nature of the blink. It makes it so much harder to split push, since you don't have illusions like Naga Siren or Terrorblade, and pretty much every hard carry *should* be able to split push since it's so ridiculously important in the lategame*

To be honest, if you really want to go hard carry with PA, it works, but it's more a case of 'there are better picks'. It's not the damage, or even MKB because PA is a high armour hero, which means you've already got lots of physical resistance. Hell, I'd actually replace the BKB once its duration has run its course and just try and tank through whatever stuns and nukes they've got, Morphling-style. But, you don't have any inbuilt spell evasion like Phantom Lancer does, hence why you get Manta - for the dispel.



Much longer post than I anticipated... there is a lot to discuss about the hero, really, because there are so many ways of playing her, and there is no 'best' way. But since you are pretty new, Medallion - Vlads - Deso or Helm - Basher/Yasha - BKB is a good all purpose build.

Wow, that was like super helpful, thanks a lot, I really see now the hero from a different perspective. I'll be trying the Medalion, since I like to play Dazzle and that's one of my favorite items for him. Now I just need some guidance about the Assault Cuirass, it is a good item for her?

Again, not an item I've got a lot of experience with, but as with most I'd say - situationally. Especially against heroes who can get an early MKB in their item progression, before you've got a lot of armour. Also against negative armour effects, like Slardar and Vengeful Spirit, it can be good.

You can try to go full minus armor on Pa, it actually works pretty well. However, you will be lacking in damage and survivability compared to if you went a standard build.

Minus armor:
Threads -> medallion -> vlads -> deso -> solar crest -> AC