Phantom Lancer Russian Style!

the basic concepts of this guide are what made Phantom Lancer so strong in the current metagame. I like how someone said that almost every carry carries harder, but nowadays once PL is picked, it sets a clock for the game ("After 40 minutes, PLs team has won").

Item build wise PL is played with Tranquil Boots, Ring of Aquila, Drums of Endurance, Diffusal Blade, Manta Style, Heart of Tarrasque and Butterfly. Now and then he was played with Radiance, but that got dropped pretty fast since with roa, drums and diffu you bring so much more to early to mid game teamfights.

You no read, heart/butter late game. He is a pusher/carry if anything.
SnY is in case you are behind. MKB is against evasion heroes, assault cuirass is a team booster item that boosts your teams as as well as slowing the enemies. + the Armour gain is nice, even if illusions don't get it. These are optional/Situational items. I don't see what is wrong with playing PL like this it seems to work. If you really want we could all play PL the same and we would 9000 guides the exact same.

Also i find it funny where in your own guide you go Soul ring and Tranq boots. (Common build every has done it before) (But it gives no real survivabillity, then you rush Diffusal and HOT then give vlads as a late game extension? QQ and you even consider a bkb?)
How about concentrating on your own guide *lolololl* instead of s**t talking others. Or maybe instead of just spouting **** you might actually want to provide some proof to why this is sooooo bad and yours is soooo superior.


Also why in your far superior setup do you not even consider Keeper of the light as a viable support to Phantom lancer. Since KOTL and PL are one of the best Combo's you can get for him ._.
Oh yeh lets get a stunner instead of infinite mana



Put it this way, if you are not even going to try the build first. Then your argument is automatically invalid and you should not bother commenting.
Unless you can disprove the maths behind it and suggest a better alternative.

Juxtapose at lvl 2?
Vlads and treads? Heart in late game only?
And why the **** do you even consider SnY, MKB and Assault? They're awful on PL.
I'm surprised you even took the time to write this.
Totally useless guide, PL should not be played like this.

All pl requires is levels. Since his scaling agi is ridiculous, that is why he obtains so high DPS on stats alone this would make him semi decent of a carry with the illusion proc due to his 100+ agi at level 25, but the items are just overkill xD.
Midas gives him these levels and some bonus gold to boot. Its like why do people always get a BF on Pa surely that is just overkill? Its a farm item right surely there is no need.
PA starts coming into the game after level 6 where she can start critting for damage in ganks.
By level 6 the only thing PL has is his Spirit lance, but by level 11 he just an army of illusions.
In competitive yes he doesn't fit due to short games. However this build is trying to reduce the time for his setup. A bit like how meepo is useless unless he out farms others with levels early.

But the playstyle i guess is a bit like brood xD

Well you pretty much answered yourself for me, on paper PL might seem better since he'll proc his illusions etc but to get to that point would require a really bad opposing team and a huge amount of farm which warrants the Midas pick up. PA needs a few items to start hitting really hard at a smaller time-frame where PL needs a lot more farm to do so.

I said his playstyle is a bit like BH and more like Broodmother, he sits in lane and pushes that lane while your teammates distract push. If someone is around, he abuses his Dobblewalk and Spirit Lance. That's why I said he doesn't play like a traditional carry, in teamfights he's not effective at all since all good comps will have AoE damage, his escape mechanism is easily countered and in the current meta-game where games last much shorter, PL doesn't fit as a regular carry.

You haven't given any evidence to say its not. Also 5 mins is on a good game 10 min latest on worst possible scenario. Either way by the 30 min mark you are a very nice profit. I average at getting midas at 8mins or so.

We are not debating skill, but instead logic.
Just saying something is bad without justifying why it is bad is not good debating skills or ethics. You have just gone back to the Justification and items are really bad, without proving why.

just accept it your starting items and your justification about your build and items are really bad and lets see your game where you have farmed your Hand of Midas in 5 min . Vladmir's Offering is still bad on Phantom Lancer .... just accept it.

ROA also gives huge stat bonus ey? Just go buy a 2wratihs then if u want that and forget about ROA.

-->CNP9 It would make sense to level your Doppelwalk at level one if you wanted to play safe.
This guide does not aim for that, it is instead to use your mana to harass and farm.
It is given that you may or should level Doppelwalk at any point when you feel under pressure on your lane.

-->Nubtrain I would totally disagree about the hard carry fact. On stats alone Phantom lancer does 250 or so dps. Phantom Assasin does 270 dps
Because of his images no Hard carry (Who are single shot heroes not aoe) could best him in a 1v1
He is almost unstoppable once he has his set
In higher skill bracket he tends to fail because of AOE Picks which hard counter him (Like disables counter Ursa and Lycan) and he never gets enough farm. Usually in higher tier games it does not reach late and usually he is counter farmed to often. If you are playing PL like a BH I am sad.
I usually would compare PL to a Lone Druid
Farm then Push tower, with images instead of a bear

Maybe without that 4.2 agi he would be a lot worse.

Both vanguard and vlads are bad on PL, if you're building vlads early, you're building some old school build

Midas is ok but PL is not a good late game carry even though he has a high AGI gain and he does not play like a traditional carry

The whole point to playing PL is to get some good farm at laning phase and then split push/gank afterwards. PL has a similar playstyle to Broodmother and a bit of Bounty Hunter but more the latter. PL doesn't have anything that scales well into late game and is easily countered by strong AoE spells/attacks and invis revealing items. In low-skilled matches. PL is probably really good but on higher skill bracketss, he's has a harder time playing like a hard-carry.

Almost all other carries carry harder than PL except Sniper... cuz he needs so much farm... and blows :D

lol level 1 should be inv for escape mecanism. You should only put illusions after level 6.

That doesn't prove a thing.Vlads is bad on PL,CK,any illusion based hero.All the stats that ROA provide the illusions have them too(the agi,armor,and raw damage).

Vlad was picked 231k
ROA 237k times


See the difference?And PL is played anyway in low level,where people don't realiose that vlads is bad.This is the same arguement I had with someone a while ago on playdota.Not willing to do the math again.

The same can be said that Illusions don't benefit from the ROA aura. The only point of the ROA was to sustain your mana, surely Vlad does this more effectively as it also gives your hero a nice life steal attack meaning you have a scaling lane stay item. Also that 15% dmg is nice, especially later on. Also as i mentioned ROA And Vanguard costs 1k or so more, you might as well make Sange and yasha or your Manta. Heck for the price of a ROA and VAN you could make Diffusal blade lvl 1

"Vlad is **** on illusion based heroes" That's why it Vlad was picked 231k times, ROA 237k times
and VLAD picks have a higher win ratio of 10% https://dotabuff.com/heroes/phantom-lancer :L?