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Tango
Healing Salve
Ring of Protection
Slippers of Agility
Iron Branch
Ring of Aquila
Magic Wand
Boots of Speed
Power Treads
Ethereal Blade
Linken's Sphere
Butterfly
Eye of Skadi
Manta Style
Satanic
Monkey King Bar
Daedalus
Assault Cuirass
Divine Rapier
Boots of Travel
Black King Bar
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2 | 3 | 5 | 7 |  |
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10 | 12 | 13 | 14 |  |
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10 | 12 | 13 | 14 | |
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1 | 4 | 8 | 9 |  |
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1 | 4 | 8 | 9 | |
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6 | 11 | 16 |  |
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15 | 17 | 18 |
Playing Shotgun Morphling is no easy task, this is not a guide for beginners. Don't come crying to me if you get wasted by nukes, or you can't lane properly and never get your Ethereal Blade in a 40 minute game. Shotgun Morphling is really fun to play, especially when you get to the stage where you can one hit combo the enemy. I'm not saying you have to be a pro to play like this, but don't expect results straight away.
Always take Morph at Level One, and morph agility down to about 400-450hp so you get more damage to cs with, especially early with Morphling having fairly low base dmg.
The way the Morphling works, is that you want to buy shared stat items, because the +10 strength and agility from an 
Ultimate Orb for example, actually become +20 strength or +20 agility through the Mechanics of Morph Agility Gain. This is why more modern Morphling builds like the Ultimate Orb Build have been so popular, this pretty much allows Morphling to Morph everything into Agility and still have around 2k hp by the end of the Game.
Items that are good for the more stat oriented (No Ethereal Blade) Morphling are Eye of Skadi (2 Ultimate Orbs) Linkens Sphere (1 Ultimate Orb) and Manta Style (1 Ultimate Orb)
This allows you to be doing stupid amounts of damage and your manta illusions, which are based off stats are absolutely destructive.
Power Treads on a Morphling Should always be set to STRENGTH, this allows you to use Morph Agility Gain more because the bonus STRENGTH from Power Treads is not affected by Morph Agility Gain as it isn't base strength. What this means is that you can effectively have 1 Base Strength on Morphling, but because of all the bonus stat items you have bought, you still sit comfortably around 2k hp.
Waveform
Morphling dissolves into liquid and surges forward, damaging enemy units in his path.
MANA COST: 140 / 155 / 160 / 165
COOLDOWN: 11.0
ABILITY: TARGET POINT
DAMAGE: MAGICAL
DAMAGE: 100 / 175 / 250 / 325
Adaptive Strike
Strikes an enemy unit with a blast of water. If Morphling's agility is 50% higher than strength, it deals the maximum damage and the minimum stun. If strength is 50% higher, it deals the maximum stun and minimum damage.
MANA COST: 100 / 100 / 100 / 100
COOLDOWN: 10
ABILITY: TARGET UNIT
AFFECTS: ENEMY HEROES
DAMAGE: MAGICAL
STUN MIN: 0.25 / 0.25 / 0.25 / 0.25
STUN MAX: 0.75 / 1.5 / 2.25 / 3
DAMAGE MIN: 0.25 / 0.25 / 0.25 / 0.25
DAMAGE MAX: 0.5 / 1 / 1.5 / 2
BASE DAMAGE: 20 / 40 / 60 / 80
Morph Agility Gain
Morphling shifts its form, pulling points from Strength and pouring them into Agility. The process is reversible. Additional points in Morph increase the rate of stat change. Passively grants bonus Agility.
COOLDOWN: 0.000000
ABILITY: NO TARGET, TOGGLE
MANA PER SECOND: 20 / 20 / 20 / 20
POINTS PER SHIFT: 2 / 2 / 2 / 2
SHIFT RATE: 1 / 0.5 / 0.33 / 0.25
BONUS AGILITY: 3 / 4 / 5 / 6
Morph Strength Gain
Morphling shifts its form, pulling points from Agility and pouring them into Strength. The process is reversible. Additional points in Morph increase the rate of stat change. Passively grants bonus Strength.
COOLDOWN: 0.000000
ABILITY: NO TARGET, TOGGLE
MANA PER SECOND: 20 / 20 / 20 / 20
POINTS PER SHIFT: 2 / 2 / 2 / 2
SHIFT RATE: 1 / 0.5 / 0.33 / 0.25
BONUS STRENGTH: 3 / 4 / 5 / 6
Replicate
Morphling replicates any hero, friend or foe, although only dealing 50% the original hero's damage. At any time, Morphling can instantly take the position of the Replicate.
MANA COST: 25 / 25 / 25
COOLDOWN: 80.0
ABILITY: TARGET UNIT
DURATION: 30 / 45 / 60
CAST RANGE: 700 / 1100 / 1500
Morph Replicate
Morphling switches into his replication, instantly taking its position.
MANA COST: 150 / 150 / 150
I choose to max Waveform first for obvious reasons, early damage and a getaway if need be. I then take Morph Agility Gain second because it gives you some nice stats and strength morph can save your *** even in the early stages of the game. You have the option not to take Replicate at level 6 and max Morph and Waveform by level 8, but I feel that Replicate is good because it allows you to move freely around the map (saving money on 
Town Portal Scrolls) and it can also help confuse the enemy team somewhat.
Finally I max adaptive strike last because all the damage from it is based on agility, which scales with time, so it doesn't really matter when you get it, and there are more important skills that we can get before hand.
Obviously you'll want to pick up the final level of Replicate and level 16, then just dump it all in stats. But most of the time level 14 is where the fun begins with a shotgun Morphling. You have all your abilities, and hopefully your Ethereal Blade
Pretty basic starting items in my build, standard regen of a Tango Healing Salve. A pair of Slippers of Agility and a Ring of Protection to build into a Ring of Aquila then just get an Iron Branch for some nice stats.
After your starting items you want to finish the Ring of Aquila, then you'll can grab a 
Bottle. After this, grab your Boots of Speed and a Magic Wand. Build your Power Treads, then begin to focus on the Ethereal Blade.
Once you've got your Ethereal Blade, that's pretty much it for a shotgun Morphling, after that you can start building anything you want, like a Linken's Sphere, Eye of Skadi, Butterfly or a Manta Style. It depends on what you want and how fed you are getting, keep in mind that you can opt for a Black King Bar if you are continuously getting nuked every time you pop your Ethereal Blade. Getting a BKB before Power Treads can really help especially with high agility whilst in Ethereal Form.
Boots of Travel are also a viable replacement for Power Treads, BoT combined with Replicate make Morphling able to move around the map with ease, allowing for great hunting potential.
Keep in Mind that the Lifesteal from Satanic and the cold attack from Eye of Skadi STACK! This means that you can have them both working in tandem with each other. Make sure that you don't have have any other UNIQUE ATTACK MODIFIERS such as 
Desolator and 
Mjollnir. Please don't buy a Vladimir's Offering, the lifesteal doesn't work on ranged heroes.
You'll want to grab the same items as the EB build to start, regen for laning of a Tango and a Healing Salve, Slippers of Agility and a Ring of Protection to build into a Ring of Aquila later. If you want you can grab an Iron Branch for some cheap GG stats.
As a Morphling you should be either mid lane or in the carry role, farming the safe lane with a babysitter support. This SHOULD mean that you can free farm anything you want. But for this build I want to focus on farming a quick 
Perseverance for the lane sustainability and to build into a Linkens Sphere.
Basically, you want to farm Boots of Speed, then a 
Ring of Health then finish Power Treads then buy a 
Void Stone and finish your Perseverance, you can opt to also grab a Ring of Aquila and Magic Wand before this, but I prefer to not delay the Linkens Sphere.
After finishing the Linkens Sphere I generally proceed to get an 
Orb of Venom for some nice slow and to build into your Eye of Skadi. Before finishing the Eye of Skadi buy a 
Yasha to and finish into your Manta Style. After the Manta Style you wan't to finish the Eye of Skadi.
By this stage, you should only have 1 spare inventory slot, you should have Linkens Sphere, Eye of Skadi, Power Treads and a Manta Style ALONG WITH TP'S BECAUSE YOU ALWAYS HAVE AT LEAST 2 TP'S. So yeah, 5 slotted for now, but once you get to this stage you have heaps of choices. I like Butterfly because it makes your illusions from Manta Style even more deadly, giving them evasion and tons of damage and attack speed and armour. Or you can opt for a Daedalus and just crit people to death. If you are stupidly ahead Divine Rapier is always a laugh, and Satanic just makes you fairly unkillable.
Shotgun Morphling requires farm before he can go out and literally hunt the enemy heroes and Shotgun Combo them to death ( Waveform + Ethereal Blade + Adaptive Strike = Dead Hero). So I suggest that you go the safe lane with a support. Make sure they know what they are doing, my favorite support for lane is 
Crystal Maiden because she gives stuns, nukes and a nice mana regen on top of that.
Once you reach lvl 14 you should have your Ethereal Blade by this time, if you are last hitting properly. You become really powerful, keep a high agility and you can waste people really easily with the Shotgun Combo. Be careful however, because whilst in ethereal form you are squishy, so make sure you either have a Black King Bar if they have nukers, or a Replicate that you can jump to if things go south. Either that, or just shotgun the nukers!
In team fights, don't just jump in and Ethereal Blade, you WILL get raped. Try and snipe people off one by one and then retreat after every kill, wait until your abilities are off CD then rinse and repeat.
Don't forget about strength morph, it can save you more than once, even in the early game which is why I max it second after Waveform. If you are in a sticky situation, Waveform outta there and strength morph. Don't waste all your mana though, because you can throw in some 3 second adaptive strikes to aid your getaway.
The Shotgun Combo is why were all here right?
What's the point of a guide on how to do a shotgun Morphling if you don't even know what the combo is.
Basically, the Shotgun Combo is Waveform in then Ethereal Blade the target and finish them off with an adaptive strike. If they aren't dead then they should only take two or so hits to finish them off.
Here's an example of a Shotgun Morphling kill, watch from 37:29 as 
Enigma gets his *** handed to him in the GIGABYTE joinDOTA open grand final
All in all, shotgun morph is hard to play, but very fun and very rewarding if done right. Just make sure that you have a good laning partner, and your team isn't feeding. Be careful not to jump hastily into a situation and good raped whilst in Ethereal Form. Choose your targets wisely, only fight when you know you will win!
Try not to be too harsh! It's my first guide after all :P constructive criticism is appreciated xD
Have fun playing Shotgun Morph and owning Noobs! :)
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