matrice/Zenoth TerrorBlade

Introduction

Who am I?
Well I am an average DOTA 2 player with 4200 MMR that loves Terrorblade.
Why should I focus on these two players?
It's because these two players created one of the most effective ways to play this hero.
matrice - 6700 solo MMR, played in TI1 with Virus Gaming, 144 matches played with Terrorblade with 70% winrate and 693 average GPM.
Zenoth - 5800 Solo MMR, 154 matches played with Terrorblade with 66% winrate, with 722 average GPM.
This guide covers one of the most effective ways to play this hero and you should definitely read this if you want maximum impact.

matrice's Jungle/Lane TerrorBlade

Stay in base, make an illusion at 0:09 after the horn blows, and head to the medium camp. Make an illusion right after its cooled down, and clear it. If you cannot clear it, stack the camp (precisely at 0:56) and then kill until you get level 2. Once you get that clear the stack and kill the large camp. If you're low, you can choose to die by neutrals and make sure to buy the small parts of your wraith band before suiciding to minimize gold loss.
Remember to micro your illusions when they are low, and switch neutral aggro to hero to maximize farming efficiency.

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If you are laning, 2 circlets with salve and tango, get a quelling blade by side shop and get aquila wraith by the courier. The skill build for this is

• 1. Reflection
• 2. Metamorphosis
• 3. Metamorphosis
• 4. Conjure Image
• 5. Metamorphosis
• 6. Conjure Image
• 7. Metamorphosis
• 8. Conjure Image
• 9. Conjure Image
• 10. ADAPT

Your skill build shouldn't be static. For example, if your team is doing bad and you can't farm lane or push towers. You go to jungle. And if you want to jungle, you want to take more points into [Conjure Image]. Adapt according to situation!
You don't always get sunder, you get it when you think you need it. matrice never gets this before level 10, and sometimes when between level 14-16. Only get this if you are SURE you can get a guaranteed Sunder off when you have some items that make you tanky.
Get TWO points of Reflection. One is simply not enough.

Why no sunder at level 6?

It is because as TerrorBlade, you should be prioritize farming and pushing towers safely. Contrary to popular belief, Terrorblade is NOT a good early teamfighter. It may seem like he is very strong early game with his +80 damage but actually he goes down very fast to nukes and burst damage, and you should try not to die when you're playing carry. Only partake in small ganks/skirmishes if it is advantageous. Remember, prioritze not dying over kills. Sure you may get the gold, but you also lose gold and spend time respawning and with all that time you could be farming which is way better.

matrice's Item builds

Well why this item on TerrorBlade? It is because it provides a solid 3.5 second disable on heroes you need to lockdown. Well why not abyssal blade? Because you must get into melee range (which is dangerous to Terrorblade) and it does not stop evasion. Hex disables evasion so you can hit the enemy PA, or their evasion carry. MKB is not always a core if playing against butterfly Naga Siren or Phantom Lancer I just put the MKB on situational items because Matrice only got it in 2 games or so. But Scythe provides much more utility than a MKB can.

• Solid Disable
• Can spam illusions everytime it's off cooldown. Literally.

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The active's great, but you shouldn't get this for the active. It's mainly the +40 to agility and +10 to Strength and Intelligence. This is the best item to buff your illusions' raw power. Use the active to finish off fleeing heroes, or their main carry while your illusions mow down their supports.

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vs

Why does matrice prefer and early SNY rather than a Manta style? It's because illusions at that point early in the game are very squishy, dont do THAT much damage and generally go down to 2 nukes. SNY provides more chasing power and HP compared to an early Manta. Of course, disassemble SNY later on to Manta style

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Although this provides no damage whatsoever, this item is good in prolonged fights/sieges where you can heal up while your illusions to the work. However, an Eye of Skadi does give more EHP (combined with armor from +25 agility) Very situational item.

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For SUPER DUPER LATEGAME. matrice once used Metamorphosis and made an illusion to bait the enemy to make them think he wasted his Metamorphosis and they dived. But nope! Thanks to [[Refresher Orb] he had his Metamorphosis back and killed all of them.

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SUPER DUPER LATEGAME. Leave this in the courier, put it in the border of the map, and prepare to use it when entering a teamfight.

NO RADIANCE!!!!

WHAT?! NO Radiance NOOB!
Now, a dedicated section to this one particular item, I will explain why it is a bad item on Terrorblade.

• He does not have a spell like Rip Tide to clean up creep waves.
• Radiance illusions cannot clear neutral camps/a wave of creeps fast enough before the illusion dies.
• Radiance will make you a liability until you get your next 2 items instead of a split-push threat.
• Radiance does NOT provide ANY source of stat to his illusions, they only carry the burning aura.
• Radiance will give less tower razing, with slower farming because Radiance illusions have barely any auto attack damage whatsoever.
  Wait, what? Slower farming?
• Yes. I mean that. Radiance is a huge 5k goldsink and by that time where if you have your Sange and Yasha or Manta Style your illusion can clear a whole large camp all by itself and can be a bigger threat to towers.
• Radiance will provide no armor/EHP and you will die extremely fast with 700 by level 11.
• Yasha also provides a butterfly's worth of attack speed and the movement speed contributes to faster farming.
• Farming with just yasha>Farming with Radiance.
• Not to mention you have to farm a freaking 3800 gold item which leaves you powerless early on if you don't get that.
• If you still believe Radiance is a good item, go play 2 games, one with radiance and one with Sange and Yasha or Manta Style and the results will be obvious.

matrice's Playstyle

Split push. Participate in ganks if your team wants to with Reflection Try to keep every lane pushed so it discourages the enemy team from 5-manning mid. If your team is so hopeless that you need to do something. matrice goes full rat with getting Manta Style instead of Sange and Yasha and ratting to no end. However if you think you can defend high ground with a possibility to win the fight, defend, but split push a lane first until a fight breaks out, then TP to your base.

Zenoth Laning

Get a Quelling Blade ASAP at the side shop, farm for Ring of Aquila and then boots. After boots get a Yasha. What I see Zenoth doing is that he pushes a lane all the way until tier 2 tower. Then if it's pushed he'll metamorph in the jungle to clear it fast, then if he finds that the enemy safelane tier 1 tower is destroyed, he can farm 3 camps of the enemy jungle. The reason is because without the enemy having their safelane tier 1 tower, enemy cannot TP to tier 1 to take control of the jungle. Also the enemy safelane carry will most likely not farm in the area of the destroyed tier 1 because it is unsafe, so Zenoth can almost safely farm the area around the destroyed tier 1. He's not afraid to use Metamorphosis to farm jungle fast.

IMPORTANT!!! Destroy the tier 1 tower in your safelane as fast as possible to maintain safety to your jungle.

Zenoth's Item build

Boots of Travel and Yasha. It's pure bottleneck. No travels = no split push no flash farm.

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May seem like insanity at first but the triple Butterfly build is for the extreme split push. Heroes like Puck, Magnus, and Windranger that lack powerful spells or auto attacks simply cannot deal with the illusions so as you can see this build is extremely powerful when pushing at their tier 3s.

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Now this build is to make your illusions more tankier when there are heroes that can deal massive amount of damage to illusions such as Ember Spirit with Battlefury or simply a line-up that deals too much AoE damage.

Zenoth's Skill build

Now his build takes no points into Reflection early on because he depends on his team for lockdown if committing to a gank. The other reason why is he wants to farm a lot faster and push a lot faster with the maxed Conjure Image and Metamorphosis. There's a reason why I stopped with the skill build past level 8, because after that it entirely depends on the situation.
I'll conjure a scenario where he would go for a certain build.

• Enemy team has LOTS of nukers and stuns and burst damage (heroes like Lina, Crystal Maiden, and Lion.

Zenoth's Playstyle

RAT DOTA.
Simply split push like never before with this build. Don't bother to help your allies or help them defend a tower. You can TP to your rax under fire if you think you have enough items to repel their push and kill some heroes. Flight>fight. Farm over kills.

Miscellaneous

• Yasha's bonus 16 attack speed works on illusions (it is classified as an Endurance Aura), basically giving you a Butterfly's worth of attack speed (including the 15 agility)
• Quelling Blade's bonus damage to creeps works on illusions. "Quelling Blade gives a Butterfly's worth of damage on illusions. It's literally the last non-tier 4 item I replace on Terrorblade" - Zenoth
• You can cast Manta during Metamorphosis two times because Metamorphosis lasts 52 seconds while Manta Style's cooldown is 50 seconds.
• Sunder has a mini-stun.
• Yasha's bonus 16 attack speed stacks! Doesn't mean you should stack Yashas though.
• You can dodge projectile-based spells such as Magic Missile with Metamorphosis's transformation time.

Improving your game

To improve at playing this hero, I recommend watching replays of matrice and Zenoth, because there are so much to farming and positioning that I can't explain it all.
matrice DOTABUFF http://dotabuff.com/players/49382246
Zenoth DOTABUFF http://dotabuff.com/players/68379658
Simply copy paste the match ID's and watch it, public replays on last for 10 days.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading my second guide and thank you matrice and Zenoth for inspiring me to play this extremely annoying split-push hard carry hero!