Yet another rework to Phantom (MMR) Assassin

I don't agree with Michi here, and not because I'm not a "support activist" :P but because supports are already supposed to be focused down by any good cores in teamfights. That doesn't change with Hamster's idea, it's just something innerent to the game and ok, and that makes support positioning so much more important in the early to mid game (where most of the times, contrary to Hamster says, they still don't have those defensive items farmed).

That said, I read several times this idea and I don't know if I like it or not, tbh. It's complicated, we would need to see it be used for real, can't antecipate exactly what would come of it. The general gist I feel is giving her the lifesteal on top of the passives + dodge might be too much (you're basically freeing up an item slot completely), and I really don't understand how you think you've solved the damage problem with this that's new. Because the way you reworked her abilties she still needs to kill heroes to have ver abilities' cooldown resets, and that was never a problem in itself (having low coldown abilities I mean), the problem is you need to crit out of some amount of damage to make it worth it, and the abilities don't necessarily give you that damage on their own. Probably because of it, you say: Then you can go Desolator. But: Why can't you go Deso already, just because you don't have lifesteal/you don't want to go Vladmir's Offering? I think it's almost the only legit build there is right now (the Deso, I mean, not the Vlads), and I agree with Safecyn in part, the Blight Stone is just a must (I don't agree with him that you need to go mid necessarily).

So basically: maybe your idea would work and not be overpowered, doesn't strike me as a bad one, although it's a bit complex. Is it needed though? I keep feeling PA is not on the trash bin as you say but is only more of a situational pick now, such as Templar Assassin, of which no one is complaining right now but has a very low pick rate in competitive.

Edit: I mean, look at this: http://www.dotabuff.com/heroes/meta

Her winrate in above 5k is bigger than heroes like Windranger or Nature's Prophet. So she's not necessarily a liability, but she's being very little picked right now, and I think it's because a) she's more situational than ever before; b) people don't really know yet what to do with her and she hasn't got a new stable build that everyone can revert to.

Y'know, I might as well do the math on this one.

Old Stifling Dagger: 30/50/70/90 pure damage (not reduced by anything)

Current Stifling Dagger: 75 + 25/40/55/70% of PA's damage as physical (reduced by armor)

PA's starting damage, level 1: 46-48. 25% of that = 11.5-12

Blight Stone reduces armor by 2, so against a hero with 2 or less armor, Stifling Dagger will deal at minimum that full 75 + 11.5-12 damage, meaning that at level one it'll do 86.5-87 damage. At 0 armor, as opposed to the 30 pure it did previously. 1 armor decreases that value to 81.31-81.78. 2 armor decreases that value to 76.9-77.3 damage.

At 20 armor, this value is decreased to 38.9-39.15 damage. This is still level one, remember, so only 25% of PA's attack damage is going towards the dagger, and she has no additional damage items because she went Blight Stone + regen with some extra to save for bottle.

I acknowledge that Stifling Dagger isn't a consistent damage amount and will do less damage as the game goes on but... the math doesn't lie on this one, at early levels it got a huge buff.

Yes, but supports with no items whatsoever need to be vulnerable. That's kind of the point, you can't have heroes having a huge game impact and be hard to focus with no farm whatsoever.
Otherwise you're encouraging supports camping mid all early game instead of pulling or setting up kills in the safe lane.




Because it makes Desolator, Battle Fury and Butterfly good on her. The reworked PA actually has a large choice of damage items, while the current one doesn't have any choice in that matter.
Deso is meh on PA because she needs lifesteal or at least some sort of sustain and Vlads is too expensive. Butterfly is trash on PA for obvious reasons. And Bfury is bad on PA because her late game is weak to MKB. WIth the rework, all 3 items are good on her. So she can stack damage items, fixing her damage issue.

The issue is not that PA's skills don't have enough damage, it's that there are no good damage items for her. All she needs is replacement damage items for Abyssal Blade.



Her cooldowns are actually a major issue. The current PA has very weak teamfight presence because she's limited to killing one hero and then getting CC'd to death. BKBs last only 5 seconds in the late game so that's only the duration of one blink cooldown. If you allow her to kill several heroes during her BKB duration it makes her scale much better.



TA hasn't gotten any significant change since 6.84 with the deso buff. TA is still the same hero she's always been. I really don't see the parallel here. PA was destroyed by recent changes.

Helm of the Dominator: 1800 gold, built from two 900 gold items.

Vladmir's Offering: 2275 gold, built from cheaper early game items like Ring of Basilius and Iron Branch.

I'm not gonna comment further on that one.



I feel like you mixed those two up, so I'll ask you this: what are the obvious reasons that Battle Fury is bad on PA? My reasoning behind that is that it's because it's a farming item on a hero that should be ganking and fighting early, but I feel like you don't have that same reasoning, so I'm curious to hear the details.

500 more gold for less damage and no upgrade path to one of the best PA items. And besides you can't go deso and Vlads and still get BKB at a respectable timing.
...yeah. 2300 gold for a sustain item with almost no damage. I'd rather have an urn, at least it gives HP.

A agree with Chichi that deso is the "best" build...compared to her other options that is. That's why I'd call it more the "least garbage" build. Phase Boots into Urn of Shadows into Desolator into BKB. That's how I'd build PA if I was forced to play her against my will :)




Yes, this.
But why is she supposed to fight early? Because she's weak to MKB in the late game, forcing her to fight before they come out.
If you remove that weakness to MKB, Battle Fury becomes good on her.

I think my main issue with this, though, is that that if you remove PA's weakness to Monkey King Bar in the late game, you're essentially changing her core hero concept: PA being weak to MKB is like Wraith King being weak to mana burn and Phoenix being weak to high attack speed: they're not flaws, they're actually part of the hero design, a vital element in the play/counter-play balance that makes the game interesting and competitive.

In fact, when played as a snowballing semi-carry that's MEANT to fall off in the late game and built accordingly, her weakness to MKB can actually be one of her biggest strengths. Is the enemy team's hard carry an OD, a Storm Spirit, or some other INT-Core? Pick PA, run her mid, get a BKB, and watch as they're forced to go Monkey King Bar and cripple their own total damage output, or else get completely shut down by her.

And it's not just with INT cores: does Sven really want an MKB instead of an item that actually gives him strength to scale with God's Strength? Does Slark want to get an MKB before Silver Edge and Eye of Skadi, so that he can reliably deal with her evasion instead of hoping he can get the jump on her without getting caught out by Sentries? When picked into heroes like this who can function OK with MKB but would rather not get the item, Phantom Assassin gives the enemy core a difficult choice to make: and at the end of the day, even if they do get Monkey King Bar, she has the tools to kite melee carries around and keep them from getting into range of her.

I just feel like 'garbage tier' is way too harsh a criticism: niche, maybe, but the hero is strong in the right situation, and additional buffs to her could cause 6.88 to be a PA dominated meta with terrible, terrible pub games for everyone: she's already the #1 picked hero over the recent weeks.

I'd actually be happy to play Storm vs PA mid, you just need 2 items on him to erase this hero from the game xD. Same with Tinker, and OD if he was a 6.86 version of his own self(6.87 Od mid is pretty terrible).

Just because she has issues in the late game doesn't mean that her mid game is good. It actually isn't, that's my whole point in the first place.



Back when Monkey King Bar was the only item counter to PA, sure.

It's just...now there are two other item counters to her : Silver Edge and Bloodthorn

So everyone is a natural carrier of an item that hard counters PA.

Storm Spirit -> Bloodthorn 2nd item = GG. Storm can kite PA's BKB endlessly. Besides Storm vs PA mid is the most ez lane I've ever seen.

outworld devourer is a natural Silver Edge FIRST item buyer. Oh and his ult oneshots her.




He can buy Silver Edge instead of Sange and Yasha, so as a 2nd-ish item after helm and blink. He can pretty much blink on PA and hit her with SE...she just gets rekt.
The item gives Sven 15 strength and 45 attack speed btw.




If you think sentries are a risk to using SE, then you don't know how to use the item.
You can use the active from SE without even using the invis, you just wait for your team to initiate first.
You can use it like any other active item like Heaven's Halberd and such. Even if you don't ever use the invis it's completely worth it.

I like almost every change, its everything PA need right now (instead of **** Vanguard builds)

But i have a question, how would work this active of Blur ? Its like a second Linkens sphere ? because if she rush a Linken(as any high mobility carry should) she would be the most cancer tier that ever existed, i would need a euls and dagon to broken both and use maybe Duel or Reaper scythe

No, no. That would be OP and it's not what I made. What I made is an active, it doesn't trigger automatically like linkens does. That's a big difference. It also doesn't do anything against instant skills like Hex or Reaper's Scythe unlike linkens.

See it more like a weaker version of Dark Pact with a much longer cooldown. Weaker because Slark has a chance against instant stuff like Hex or Fiend's Grip, PA can do literally nothing, because it's not a projectile. Linkens PA would be like Linkens Slark...without the other escape skills Slark has.

My new Blur simply has an active that disjoints everything thrown at you when you activate it. Like Windrun does. Or like Blink does - except you don't move.

See it more like activating a deflector shield XD