iN7.Gankers Guide to Morphling

Time to test the waters

Hello guys!

This is meant to be my very first guide about a certain hero of DotA/Dota 2. Usally I wont simply write a guide but I have thought about how I could help make the community of Dota in general grow and this is one thing I actually considered to be helpful. So this is what I want to achieve with this guide, help the community grow.

You may jump to the for you most intresting parts of this guide but I highly recommend you to read the whole one if you want to judge later on.

For all players out there who are new to the world of DotA/Dota 2: You have to endure much but if you keep playing you will start to really enjoy this awesome game!

Introduction

Let's talk about Morphling.

Morphling is a low ranged agility hard carry who if you noticed is picked more often in the last months in competetive tournaments. His skills are quite mana intensive especially in the early stages of the game. Due to recent buffs which grants him stats when skilling "Morph",a lower cooldown to his "Adaptive Strike" and an increase of his start agility stats, he is getting more and more interesting to competetive players.

Enough about competetive play. For you Morphling is probably a quite open book which you want to read, learn and master this guide will help you to get an idea of this hero and what he is used to do. You may experience new things even as an quite decent player while reading this guide.

I hope you will enjoy reading this guide and I hope you will enjoy playing Morphling as well.

Pros / Cons

Pros

- ranged ...
- good starting stats
- good stat gain, especially in agility
- 3,5 escape mechanisms, therefore hard to kill
- great mobility due to his ultimate
- good start dmg
- high nuking abilities, granting outtakes

Cons

- weak range for a ranged hero ...
- very mana intensive earlygame
- quite item dependant
- hes not Antimage (just kidding :D)
- gets countered by manaburn

Skillbuild - Explanation - Justification

1.

Waveform

Your first skill which you will max asap due to obvious reasons. It deals great damage and grants you the possibility to reduce the distance to your target if used agressively. You will almost everytime be able to get a few more hits out after you waveformed on your enemy. Its great range of 1000(!) is mostly underestimated by you as well as your enemies. You will also need to use it for obviously defensive purposes. Keep in mind that its possible to dodge quite a large amount of projectiles with your Waveform which makes you basically really hard to kill atleast without silence or dagger initiation from your enemy team.

2. Adaptive Strike

Adaptive Strike

Getting early skillpoints in this ability is absolutely pointless. It wont help you much in the earlygame meanwhile its completely devastating in lategame especially if its combined with Ethereal Blade. It deals more dmg, the more agility you have and it will stun for the maximum time if you got atleast 1 more str than agi. Which possibly grants you a chance to escape from your enemy as well. It will however ministun the target even if you morphed all str into agi which means you are able to interrupt channeling spells. To provide this in a maybe early clash you should get it at level 9 and max it later on. Ever noticed that spell got a range of 900 at lvl 4?

3.

Morph

The ability that signalizes Morphling.
This ability is as flexible as water itself, to get the most out of your hitdmg max your agility but always keep an eye on your hp. You will also max the dmg from Adaptive Strike when you max agi. If you are getting ganked early on, you will be able to escape almost every gank at lvl 8 if you react very fast. Morph all your agility into str will grant you depending on the current level of morph 2/4/6/8 str per sec as long as you got agility to morph into strength. Thats basically a heal of 152 hp per second at lvl 4. Note that you are able to start and stop morphing even if you are stunned/disabled apart from silence. If you start morphing into str before you get silenced your morphing wont be stopped. Therefore you spend skillpoints into it at level 2 and 4. Many oldschool players will nevertheless skill stats instead of Morph in early levels which isn't recommend anymore because the difference in stats gained at lvl 4 are only 4 int at the cost you might die because you won't be able to morph to survive an engage. Choose your preference, i prefer it the mentioned way. Note: you cant morph stats gained by items into str nor agi.

4. Replicate

Replicate

Grants insane mobility, advantages in clashes and the possibility to juke your enemies.
First things first. You create an illusion which is under your control from an enemy or an allied hero. You are able to instantly jump into this illusion as long as its alive, granting you the oppurtunity of several things i am going to explain. We will however skill it at lvl 10 and 11 because your lvl 1 ultimate is simply not worth to get at lvl 6.

-

Chasing

, you are not in range to kill an enemy due to waveform? No Problem, just replicate your enemy and instantly jump into your created illusion and waveform him to dead. Thats easily possible due to the awesome range of Replicate. (700/1100/1500)

-

Escaping ganks

, if you are aware of getting ganked if you push one of the lanes and your enemy team is missing, create an illusion and make sure you will be able to jump into your illusion in time. Dont forget the illusion will not last long on early levels.

-

Confusing the enemy and pull them into a trap

, create a replicate as normal of one of your teammates, if possible someone the enemy team really wants to kill and micro him to use him as bait. Your enemy will possibly engage on your poor illusion and waste spells on it. As soon as this happens you have the best timing to initiate yourself while your enemy disablers might got cd and your enemy is confused in general.

-

Lane switching

, replicate an enemy or allied hero and move the illusion to a another lane you see the possibility to farm in and jump into it at the time you want.

-

Healing

, replicate someone and move your illusion to a safe position while tping back to base to heal up and possibly get some items in after that just jump back to your replicate in lane, minimizing wasted time.

-

Outtake suicide commando

, not seen as often as I want it to see. Replicate an allied hero and move your illusion to safety or a lane you want to farm. Morph all your str into agility. You need atleast the famous Ethereal Blade. Note that you are able to use items while in waveform. Wait until you see a weak hero of the current game or some sort of support/fragile enemy hero. Exploit your Waveform range and use ethereal blade before hitting your enemy with waveform which will amplify your waveform dmg, as well as deal tons of damage due to Ethereal Blade. Instantly use adaptive strike after waveform ends and jump into your replicate to safety. If well executed your enemy team wont be able to disable you in time due to Linkens.(You will probably deal around 1400 dmg(after magic resistance) with only Linkens and Ethereal Blade and lvl 18)


-

Aura steal

, quite simple, you are able to copy any hero you want to and you should highly consider to copy the one who carrys for example an assault cuirass, your illusion will grant the aura to your team, what actually makes a huge difference in fights.

Items - Explanation - Justification

Core

[*]

Power Treads

Why no Phase boots, Arcane boots or Tranquil boots?

Power Treads granting you stats, ias and decent movespeed which is imo a better trade than the dmg granted by Phase boots. Even though you say Morphling benefits from the movespeed you dont really need it because you already got chasing abilities due to Waveform. Your hero is quite mana intensive but never consider Arcane boots as a possibilty. If you try to manage your mana problem in the early game you will probably see you wont need them. Tranquil boots are for supports or junglers you dont benefit enough from them to make them worth to buy.


[*]

Linken's Sphere

You will almost everytime see

Morphling gets this item.
It grants you stats, dmg, important mana/hp regen and the famous spell block. All in all one of the best items for Morphling. However you will possibly see some players skip Linkens to get early Manta, this will mostly happen if the player noticed he needs to participate in fights very early on and won't have a big impact in fights with Linkens which he will have with a Manta. Consider this option!


[*]

Manta Style

Never underestimate the dmg dealt by

Morphling and his illusions. If you are quite informed about how illusions work in DotA/Dota 2. You will might know that illusions dont benefit from raw dmg items like Sacred Relic or Monkey King Bar but they will benefit from stats. One of the reasons why you will see most Morphling players buy stats orientated items instead of raw dmg. Manta Style increases not only his power in fights, you will also get some movespeed and the ability to easily solo push towers if not interrupted. Dont forget that you are able to dodge some spells as for example Vengeful Spirit's Magic Missile with the right timing. Also use manta to confuse your enemey in team fights if they cant figure out the real one in time you will deal much damage to them.



[*]

Ring of Aquila

Why waste so much gold on that item?

Good question!
I am not really sure about this either. The good thing is that it will grant you mana regen and good stats. (3 dmg, 6 agi, 3 int, 3 str; resulting in 9 dmg in total) This will also increase your lasthitdmg significantly and is not as much expensive as it used to be because we already got slippers and RoP from the start. Some sort of personal preference might got me here. Consider it yourself and take a choice!


[*]

Magic Wand

Is this really necessary?

You will mostly farm sidelanes and wont benefit from it to much?

I dont think so! Morphling is due to his low range forced to get close to the enemy and his team, so you wont get problems getting those charges nor will they be useless. Even if you only got 10 charges they will heal you for 150 hp/mana which is a quite amazing heal. And you will most likely need the mana if you are in danger.
Also considering you getting ganked, the enemy team will most likely need 4 heroes to struck you down. Forcing you to tank all their abilities while morphing you may need the stick charges to refill your mana to morph/waveform while the hp heal will possibly grant you 1-2 seconds to sucessfully use Waveform in time to get away. Always a great item to have. Might be personal preference so figure it out yourself. Its recommended anyway.

Sitiuational

[*]

Black King Bar

You might consider this item if you

skipped Linkens to get early Manta. Its only worth if you get disabled in almost every Teamfight or you if you face much magic dmg. Also make sure these disables wont go through BKB. (Magic Immunity) Against high physical dmg consider armor or hp items instead of BKB.


[*]

Blade mail

This item is

really situational because all other options would probably be better, but if you want to get this make sure you are really getting bursted down by a single enemy so you are able to pull nearly the whole effect out of this item choice. If you are focused by more enemies it loses hardly on efficiency.


[*]

Stygian Desolator

Excellent item to

take down high armor opponents. Your Manta illusions wont get anything from that item apart of its placing debuff. So this isn't a really good item for you. Get another item and force a support to get medaillon of courage is way better.


[*]

Diffusal Blade

Diffiusal Blade is probably

one of the viable choices to get on Morphling in special situations. Your illusions won't however trigger its passive ability but benefit from the stats. You should anyways only get it if you desperately need a hard slow or you need to purge buffs like Omniknights "Repel" from an enemy hero.


[*]

Hand of Midas

You should

only get it if you were able to farm it between 4-6 min into the game. After that time just dont go for it anymore. Even though some of you are arguing that it will make itself worth buying after a certain amount of time. You will even if you get it fast around 4-6 min miss more useful items as for example a perseverance which is even cheaper. So it might be a viable choice but always a risky one.It will however boost your farm quite nice. Getting better the earlier you got it. Let your personal experience lead you or try it yourself!


[*]

Heart of Tarrasque

Grants a

huge amount of tankability and make your illusions even more tanky although they wont benefit from the raw hp boost. An useful item if you want to tank the living **** out of you. Consider it against high physical dps or even spell dmg.


[*]

Mjollnir

Possibly one of the

most underrated items in DotA/Dota 2. Grants massive ias and the lightning passive which also grants an antipush ability as well. Hardly recommended against high physical dps because of its active ability which "places a charged shield on a target unit, when that unit is damaged, there is a 20% chance that lightning will strike the source of the damage and 2 nearby enemies. Lightning deals 200 magical damage". This can almost destroy a whole enemy team if they focus the shielded target or prevent the shielded target from getting attacked at all. Consider it yourself or try it out as well. It won't actually benefit your illusions which is the downside of this item, so its quite situationl. Buy it if you have to deal with many physical hits else simply dont.


[*]

Assault Cuirass

Something which is actually also a quite viable choice in some specific situations. The downsite you know

it won't help your illusions atleast not directly but the aura of it actually works on your illusions and the armor decrease will make your illusions hurt even more. Additionally it will highly increase your survivability against phsical dps as well as it makes you able to push even harder. Should be considered on Morphling if no one else would buy it and if you need survivability against physical dps. Dont get it if there are better options.


[*]

Monkey King Bar

Great item choice if you want to

counter Windrun(one of Windrunners abilities) or an enemy hard carrys Butterfly. Keep in mind raw damage won't ... okay, you might got it now. :) It will also grant you a chance to ministun your target which can interrupt channeling. Otherwise dont buy it if you won't need its effects.


[*]

Divine Rapier

Most risky item in the whole Game. Never buy it unless you got aegis or 20/0/X. You might throw the game if you die. A game deciding item which should be considered if its the very last chance for you to eventually win the game.

Luxury

[*]

Boots of Travel

Best Lategame boots in the game. If you can afford them really early in the game they are even more powerful. You will save money you would have needed to buy tp scrolls and you will get one more slot to carry items with you because you are not anymore in need of carrying those tp scrolls.


[*]

Butterfly

A really great item for you and your illusions. It basically makes you able to outcarry any physical dps carry unless he got Monkey King Bar. If you got a good game buy it if you are in need of survivability against magic dmg don't. It will obviously boost your adaptive strike as well.


[*]

Daedalus

If you want to just

high dps the **** out of your enemy this item is the best besides rapier to do so. If you are in need of countering your enemies items you should do this instead of getting this item first.


[*]

Eye of Skadi

One of the best items on Morphling. You and your illusions greatly benefit from those stats. It grants you a good slow which will prevent any enemies besides blinkers to get out of your range. The hard hp boost from the item itself also lets you tank up much dmg. All in all a worthy item choice.


[*]

Satanic

If you need to outcarry a hard physical dmg carry and even if you dont you should

always consider lifesteal because its literally the best lategame orb effect(Unique attack modifier)in the game. Besides that the active ability is hilarious if you dont get stunned after activation.

Laning

How to lane Morphling?

Morphling is a hard carry and hard carrys should always get supported/babysitted in which lane ever they are. You might consider to solo lane Morphling which is not really a terrible choice but a risky one. In pubs you should always take the safe lane with atleast one support hero who should totally sacrifice any sort of farm in the lane to you. The support will protect you and should atleast double stack pull if possible all the time to make farming for you really easy and safe because you are near your tower all the time, deny experience to the enemy and make you out leveling the enemy because you are solo and they get exp denied. Which might opens the possibility to kill your enemy in lane.

Lets get a little bit more into competetive play.
Possibilities for laning Morphling are:

(Inexperienced players may skip.)

1. safe-dual laned
2. safe-tri laned
3. dual-mid laned
4. solo-hard laned

[*] 1.

Safe-dual laned

You should do so if you are assuming your enemy might solo lane a hero there, so morph will have a quite easy time to lasthit and to get levels up. If morph gets a good early start your support will be able to gank midlane. Dont lane it this way if you are facing against a dual lane top, they might pressure morph to much so he wont get as much farm as you want him to get.

[*] 2.

Safe-tri laned

You should lane it this way if you are atleast assuming the enemy to dual lane there but you know they might will trilane there and challenge your trilane. If you are facing a dual lane you should keep one support on lane and the other one pulling. Feel free to gank the dual lane every time they dare to get close with your 2 supports. Your supports might rotate into the middle and gank while you stay safe and farm or stay passive.

[*] 3.

Mid-dual laned

If you are assuming an enemy hero in mid which greatly benefits from runes and farm in mid you should dual lane against him. Morph will be able to farm well and your support will be able to gank both other lanes and possibly getting help by those runes, your support has to steal from your opponent.

[*] 4.

Solo-hard laned

This is a really risky lane you should only use if you are aware of what enemy Morphling will face in this lane. You should never lane morph on hardlane against more than 1 hero also make sure that your Morphling will win this lane and dominate atleast as much to get decent farm on him.

Why shouldn't you lane morph solo mid?

Quite easy to answer. Morphling needs farm and he is a sort of hero that got problems to dominate a lane early on if hes alone. You will often face heroes in mid which are known of their capabilities to control a lane or getting an advange per level. Morphling is also not the sort of hero who should gank and can gank effectively. Because he will miss farm and levels atleast if hes not successful in ganking.

How to play

To categorize this section we will divide the whole game into 3 parts.

1. Earlygame
2. Midgame
3. Lategame

1. Earlygame/Laning phase

Your achievment is to get as much farm and levels as you possibly can and avoid dying at all costs. Get your earlygame items up as soon as possible.

2. Midgame

You are about to reach lvl 6-8, the first ganks might start around this point, try always to be aware of where the enemy team is and have in mind to be really careful if a few are missing. Start to ALWAYS carry 2(!) tp scrolls with you. Your goal is to atleast reach your Linkens at 20 min which means you got quite decent farm. From now on you are able to participate in fights. Your next goal will be to get your Manta asap. You should not participate in ganks because you will miss farm and exp if you do so. Be aware that you could be ganked by the whole enemy team and keep in mind what you have learned regarding the sections before. Anyway if your team needs you to defend a tower you should always tp in there to fight the enemy team if you got atleast linkens. If you dont and you wont skip it than sacrifice this tower to get your farm and possibly dmg an enemy tower as well. Be anyway careful about how much you actually can sacrifice to get your Linkens.

3. Lategame

The time Morphling starts shining. Keep in mind that you are the carry which basically means that you are the most important hero of your team. A stupid decision will probably cost you the game if you cant afford a buyback. You are not the one who should initiate the fight, you need your Linkens to be ready after the initiation. Try to focus down supports or heavy dps heroes with not ridicoulously high armor or exposed enemies which are out of position. Use your abilities wisely and try to deal as much dmg as you can with your Manta illusions and Adaptive Strike. Save Waveform if you are not sure if you will need it to escape or not. Always save for buyback. You should only spend your whole money if you are confident enough that the bought item will make a huge difference in team fights.

Keep in mind all the facts mentioned in the sections before and try to use them to win the game. Consider items which counters the enemy team.

How to sucess with Morphling

What is actually needed to play Morphling well?

You need to:

- be able to lasthit 95% of the creeps in lane when you are not facing a lane opponent.
- be able to control a lane
- make wise descisions (when to fight, when to farm, where to farm/fight and where not)
- have a huge knowledge about the whole game (mechanics, skills)
- have Map awareness, Juking Skills, Mindgaming

All you need to do to get better is practicing, practicing and practicing. And reading guides about certain heroes and the game in general. Your expierience will grow and you will get better after a certain amount of time. You may also look out for some VODs which might show really amazing Morphling plays you can actually learn from.

So you might watch one of the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E2NcQ0U9Og&list=PL690C3B161B3EF690&index=27&feature=plpp_video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfyEpLy7-jA&list=PL690C3B161B3EF690&index=28&feature=plpp_video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S_txFdgOxM&list=PL690C3B161B3EF690&index=37&feature=plpp_video

They aren't from Morphling's view only but if you look closely you will be able to learn even from that persepective and these are actually really awesome games to be honest.

Summary

Thats it!

So far with this quite "in-depth" guide to Morphling. I hope you really enjoyed this guide and you are hopefully considering it helpful. But my work is not done yet. There might be things I simply forgot to mention as well as many orthography mistakes besides from all the grammar one's. I apologize for my quite poor english skills and hope you will help me to find out the remaining mistakes.

Feel free to make suggestions and mention things I should consider for future guides. You may leave some general comments, criticism or praise. If you like this guide, make sure to upvote, you may help to spread the word and share this guide to your friends as well.

Thanks to all these people out there who read the whole guide and not only parts of it!

Special thanks to:

Icefrog <3
All the hardworking valve developers ;)

"Over and out"

iN7.Ganker

Changelog

1.0.0 iN7.Gankers Guide to Morphling published - 11.04.2012