Mightycookie's guide to Templar Assassin

Introduction

Hello guys, im mightycookie and today i bring you a new guide!!!! (isnt this exciting? im getting *****.....) ok, so this is my second guide and today i bring you my teachings for Templar Assassin!!!! she is my favorite hero and a fun hero to play. she can do everything, semi-carry, carry, push, hell she can even semi support as she only really needs 2 items. but you shouldnt support with her. With Templar Assassin you should always go mid if possible. She has huge burst damage and armor reducing with Meld she is not the easiest hero to play, but once you get her, get ready to have loads of fun killing people. Keep on reading if you want to know my play stile with her.

After the nerf, Bottle is absolutely core on her, otherwise she will have no mana sustain.

Skills

ok, Templar Assassin has an awesome skill-set.

Refraction: this is your best skill, it's ****ing awesome, but it got a little nerf. For a carry, Lanaya peaks off super early. at lvl 7 you get bonus 80 damage with this for 6 attacks!!!!! thats almost as much as a mkb!!!! also, this skill allows you to negate damage 6 times or ticks. thats why dot destroys Templar Assassin. ok, ganking with this is awesome, supposing you went mid, you take out 1/8 of a squishy support's health with a single attack from this. also, when going to a side-lane activate it before you get there to rape. this way you will probably be able to activate Refraction immediately after the first amount of charges run out. Also, this skill allows you to tower dive. But be careful, someone could tp there and then you are ****ed. Also, in combination with Psi Blades, if you attack a friendly creep, it wont take refraction charges away. so always try to hit a friendly creep and have Psi Blades hit the enemy creep.

Meld:what do you deal? physical damage how to deal more? with Meld!!!! this will give you a 200 bonus damage when maxed out and will also reduce the enemies armour. this also makes you invisible on the spot but its easily countered, it can still save your *** by using the fog of war, you go up hill and then instantly go invisible, your enemy won't know exactly where you are, giving you enough time to blink away. more often than not, you will be using this skill to deal more damage and lower the opponents armour. the thing is that this skill is a bit hard to land early on. if you are having trouble with that you can get another point in psyblades at level 8 to help you out before maxing Meld. final note, if you have good reflexes, you can use this to dodge projectiles and stun from heroes like Sven among others. be careful though, you can only dodge stuns that are projectiles so ogremagi will still stun you as his stun is an instant cast.

Psi Blades (i give up cant make it appear with the little picture) (nvm), **** you dotafire: without this skill, Templar Assassin would be a melee hero... you should almost always take this at level one as it will allow you to not have to run around the creep wave to last-hit a creep. also, this skill makes Templar Assassin one of the best heroes in the mid-lane. this is because it will also hit everything that is directly behind whatever the **** you are attacking, it will also hit him as PURE damage, this is great at mid because the lane is short and not very wide, this allows you to have a better chance at harassing. just remember when you go in for a last-hit, to position yourself in a way that your enemy is directly behind the creep.

last but not least, Psionic Trap
this skill is awesome, it's also the only thing that allows you to get close to your enemies. If you play pubs, you are gonna love this skill, you set your trapps that give 400/400 vision around them, this allows you to see the runes, so in low-level pubs where no one wards, this skill is great. all i have to say about this is, it has a delay time, so enemies can destroy them for like 2 seconds before it goes invis. and also, lay traps, everywhere. im not ****ing kidding. Just think about the places you often go through, place them there. secret shop, rosh, everywhere!!!!!!! it will net you a **** load of kills.

Pros / Cons

PROS
-she is a versatile hero
-can burst down an enemy support in 2 seconds.(not kidding)
-can take damage from 6 sources unscathed.
-free harass against opponents
-highest damage at level 7 thanks to Refraction
-very fun and addicting

CONS
-DOT destroys her. (damage over time)
-not the easiest hero
-after nerf Bottle is core on her
-very fun and addicting


as you can see, Templar Assassin is a hero with more pros than cons, she is a super fun hero to play. she is not easy, and requires a lot of positioning to play right.

counters

what Lanaya counters
Lanaya is a huge counter to intelligence casters. heroes that have high burst damage.
- Zeus
- Tinker
etc.

heroes that counter lanaya
basically, DOT and silences destroy her. After the nerf illusions are also quite bad for her. ESpecially Dot. if there is only one silence, you get linkens sphere and you are set. most of the time.
- Pudge
- Bane
- Silencer
- Queen of Pain (unless you are good with meld, and you are able to doge her stiffling dagger
- Slark
- Radiance
- Venomancer

and the award goes toooooo!!!!!!!!!

Batrider

seriously, if there is a batrider and he is any good, consider your game lost. he will decimate you. Guess who he will target in team fights when he blinks in..... thats right, YOU. dont ever pick Templar Assassin if they have a Batrider

traditional build

this is what the in-game guide says. this is if you are not looking for thrills. its quite simple, get a Bottle after starting items and build your core Phase Boots and a Blink Dagger. after that you choose one of the items up there. if you want to end early, get Desolator for the extra damage to towers and by the time you have this, you can make your opponents armour fall below 0 quite often, thus increasing your damage. With Desolator, intelligence heroes will drop super fast. IF you are planning to go into late-game or your team lacks pushing power, get this.

carry build.

This build is a bit different. i really like it. you get linkens sphere and then you make a Butterfly this gives you great attack speed and quite some damage. Also, Butterfly is a great item on Templar Assassin as when you evade an attack, you dont lose Refraction charges. this allows you to be a more traditional carry. Go for this if the game is really passive/ both teams are warding/counter warding so you cant gank effectively.

MoM build

ok, i promised a build you probably never done before, so here it is. This revolves around Templar Assassin getting a Mask of Madness as part of her core. After that you get your Blink Dagger or your first damage item. Mask of Madness is an item that is almost never gotten on her. I have had great succes with it. you ask yourself why? well lets look at what MoM brings to the table. +100 MS and a **** load of attack speed. it's only downside being that you take 30% bonus damage. But, Templar Assassin and the power of Refraction appear!!!
for 6 attacks, that bonus damage you take means nothing to you.... and you attack so ****ing fast!!!!. And take this into consideration by the time you get this, you will have around 1000 hp, and around 180 dmg with Refraction on, so each time you attack, you are getting around 5 percent of your health back. with meld this jumps up even higher, and once you get a damage item, you will be getting regen back quite fast. this build also allows you to deal all your refraction damage charges out extremely fast. Giving you such burst damage that Lina would be jealous. (although i do have a thing for redheads). With this build, i often find myself not needing the Blink Dagger since i'm so ****ing fast. But if they are focusing you, you should get the Blink Dagger so you can position yourself better.Special mention to Force Staff. this item allows you to position yourself as well while giving some stats. since you are fast, you don't rely so much on Blink Dagger so you can get this instead. if you are up a hard carry, like a Anti-Mage you should go for the butterfly first. what i usually go for is buying the Talisman of Evasion and finishing my Daedalus. whatever you go for, after that you should get the item you need at the moment. Black King Bar or Heart of Tarrasque. after getting one of these, YOU BECOME GOD i usually just get a Divine Rapier and beat the living **** out of anyone, hell if they have no stuns, and i got heart, i can 1v5 their whole team. (as you can see, if you read my last guide you will find that i like rapier quite a lot). still if you are not comfortable with rapier, just get the item you didn't before, that being Daedalus or Butterfly.

shit you just got countered build.

this build is for when there is a damage over time spell on the other team. in that case you just get 1 point in Refraction for the last hitting power, and go on to max Meld for a more effective gank to the side-lanes. since the DOT spell practically negates refraction, meld is much better. The only problem is, that meld is a bit hard to land, so your team needs to have some stuns to allow you to take a **** -load of helth from the enemy you are ganking.
heroes like Shadow Shaman and Ogre Magi are good for when this happens. Although you shouldn't really be playing Templar Assassin if the enemy has good DOT.

The new Build

This is a build that has gained some popularity lately. With this build Templar Assassin is very fast and very survivable. I personally dislike this build as it makes for safer plays, and im an overly aggressive player. But it has its uses. The Drum of Endurance makes you pretty tanky, combined with the Black King Bar you become very hard to kill and a force to be reckoned with. Later on the other items will make you faster and allow you to hit hard and fast. This build makes you more relevant late-game.

How to play Lanaya

She is a hero that is a bit hard to play, don't let that discourage you, once mastered you are gonna have so much fun, during the laning stage, you should almost always go mid, as it is the shortest lane, which allows you to freely harass with your [psi blades once you get your bottle and get to level 6, you become one of the most annoying rune *****s in the game. i usually set one trap at each rune spot and then another one on the river closer to the mid-lane. This is because if your opponent tries to contest the rune, you can detonate that trap and slow him, allowing you to get the rune and possibly kill him. remember to push the lanes before going for the rune,

Mid game, this is where you start to shine, you hve your core items, and unless you are making the carry build, you should be ganking uncontrollably, destroying the side-lanes effectively. remember, if you manage to kill both of the heroes in that lane, (3 if it is a tri-lane) to push that tower down. thanks to refaction, you can do this easily. also, if you have vision of the enemy and they are not coming for you, use a bit of the Refraction charges to tank the tower a bit, this will allow your creeps to last a bit longer, thus taking the tower faster. You have among the highest priorities to take the last-hit, unless there is a Phantom Assassin or another mega hard-carry.

Late game, this is where you start to fall off. unless you took the carry build, in that case you can still hold your own. If you did well with the MoM build, you should still rape here. Well, mainly in this part of the game, you want to jump in after the initiation and burst down a high priority hero fast. lets say, that Tidehunter that didnt cast his ulti yet. or the enemies hard carry, thats your purpose in this phase.

Friends

friends
heroes that can clump enemies together for your Psi Blades to destroy.
- Enigma
-natures prophet
- Magnus
- Dark Seer

heroes with armor reduction.

- Slardar
- Shadow Fiend
- Naga Siren

where to lay your traps

conclusion

well, thats about it. Thank you all for reading and please leave a comment and a vote. this is my second guide, i upload a new guide every sunday. please come back next week to see some wird builds about other heroes. thank you all, and may the force be with you....

THATS ALL FOLKS!!!

also, im thinking this could be a good idea:
every week, at the end of my guide, i will leave out 2 choices for you guys to vote on. the winner will be the next hero/strategy discussed in my guide.
todays nominees are:[/color]
Lina
and....
Bounty Hunter

leave your comment below just stating the name of the hero you want.

i will keep doing this only if it is effective. If i get like one vote for the next hero i will just choose whichever one i have more ideas on and cancel this proposal.
if you liked my guide, check the rest here.


ummm i just realised i uploaded it on saturday.. sorry about that, im not kidding when i say i uploaded it at 11:59... fml

also, Bottle became absolutely core on her after the nerf. no matter where you are laning.

also, if you like this guide, check out the rest here.