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Morphling is one of the HARDEST carries in the game, bested only be the holy triad (you know who i'm talking about).Unlike most carries, Morphling has a very peculiar playstyle.
While most carries look to annihilate whole teams, there is a set of carries that focusses on an entirely different part of late game.pushing and solo-ganking.
Now sure, everyone knows that team-fight wins > solo kills, but when that solo kill is your secondary damage dealer when you are 70 minutes into the game, **** gotta hurt man >.>
Some heroes such as Slark excel at picking-off heroes while sucking balls at pushing and team-fighting.Others like Naga Siren excel at split pushing and team-fights, while not being as effective in solo's.
Morphling is considered to be a nich� hero simply because he can successfully fulfill to roles in a team's draft while being very comfortable in switching his roles.He can push like hell with replicate and farm with stacks + Waveform.
Another peculiarity about our watery friend is that, he is one of the only carries who transform from being heavily dependent on magical damage to becoming physical damage dealers(eg. Tiny, Luna).Even here, he stands apart in the sense that he has the highest scaling burst for an agility hero in the game.
He is a hero with one of the highest skill caps of any agility hero (bar Meepo) and can wreak havoc among his enemies with his specialized skill set.
Your gap-closer and nuke-combined.This skill gives you a safe way to cover 1000 units without being interrupted (you are invulnerable during it's duration).This skill acts a very potent initiation/escape skill due to its moderate cooldown and is very useful in bursting down heroes with ease.
This skill is one of the main reasons that you can do your trade-marked "Shotgun" (explained later) combo while being completely safe.Please remember that you can attack,cast spells and use items when in waveform, enabling you to replicate to safety while being invulnerable.
Cast Range: 1000
Max Travel Distance: 1000
Damage Radius: 200
Damage: 100/175/250/325
Cooldown: 11 seconds
Mana Cost:140/155/160/165
Adaptive strike
Aaah, the water-gun!This is a part of Morphling's signature duo of skills, the other being morph agility.I am very confident when I say that this is one of the most versatile skills in the game.
This skill has two parts, one where the agility is 50% more than the strength, and one where the strength is 50% more than the agility.
Part I:agility is greater than strength
When Morphling's current agility is more than 50% of his current strength, [[adaptive strike gains damage on the basis of his total agility.
Let us consider (theoretically) that Morphling has a 100 agility and 50 strength.
we observe that the agility is more than 50% of strength
If we calculate his damage from adaptive strike now, it comes to,
Level 1 : 20 + 100 * 0.5 = 70 damage.
Not much right?
Level 2 : 40 + 100 * 1 = 140 damage.
Okay..that's nearly double the damage at level 1.....
Level 3 : 60 + 100 * 1.5 = 210 damage.
HA! the damage didnt double!
But look at it, isn't it still increasing?
Level 4 : 80 + 100 * 2 = 280 damage.
Wait, this has reached the level of average maxed nukes suddenly.
Now let me tell you something. Morphling's agility at level 16 is 100 agility.
Surprised?Now let me tell you something else. This does not include the extra agility from morph agility.
Just think of the burst this hero will bring forward with some items.
Part II:Strength is greater than agility
When Morphling's current strength is greater than is current agility by more than 50%, adaptive strike will do minimal damage, and will stun the hero for a long duration instead.
This part is fairly straightforward.Have more strength, inflict huge stuns. This part is amazing if one feels the need to be in fights after being bursted down. Just turn all your agility into strength and stun the enemies into oblivion!
Cast Range: 600/700/800/900
Base Damage: 20/40/60/80
Min Damage Agi Multiplier: 0.25
Max Damage Agi Multiplier: 0.5/1/1.5/2
Min Stun Duration: 0.25
Max Stun Duration: 1.25/2.25/3.25/4.25
Cooldown: 10 seconds
Mana Cost: 100
morph agility gain morph strength gain
This is the second part of the duo that more of less define Morphling.
What this skill does is, it swaps your agility for your strength or vice versa, basically meaning that you can sacrifice your health for damage,attack-speed and armor and the other way around should you desire that.
This skill enables Morphling to take hits like no other agility hero.A fully farmed Morphling can morph his health upto 5000 points,or morph agility till he has a respectable 2000 health, 35 armor , 300-350 permanent attack speed and an attack damage ranging between 300 and 350.
This skill also maximizes the damage output from [[adaptive strikea s you can put the extra strength points into agility.Remember that bonus stats from items cannot be converted into agility or strength.
This skill is not affected by stuns, making Morphling an incredibly difficult hero to kill if the player has a good enough response time.
Shift Rate per second: 1/0.5/0.33/0.2
Points Per Shift: 2
Bonus Agility: 3/4/5/6
Mana cost: 30 per second
replicate
Morphling's ultimate is a very peculiar skill.What this skill does is,it creates an illusion of your allies or enemies,which deals 50% of their damage and can tank like a real hero should (There is no damage amplification).This is the only illusion based skill in the game which gives you an illusion as tanky as the original hero.The tankiness,when coupled with the insane duration of the illusions, makes way for some really amazing plays.
Things you can do with replicates:
push like hell if you get Phantom Lancer (yes you get the insane illusion generation).
Split push by initially pushing one lane, while your illusion is somewhere hidden in the jungle of another lane,and then replicate just as the timer is going out to increase efficiency of the skill.
Use the shotgun combo and immediately replicate out for safe pickoffs.
Use Luna's illusions to devastating pushes as well as team-fight capabilities.
As you can see, each and every one of Morphling's skills is optimized for 2 things:killing people, and surviving the oncoming onslaught.It is very difficult to stop a well-played Morphling:he will destroy your team one by one, and you cannot do anything about it.
Morphling is one of the most versatile heroes in regards to his item choices, and can make good use of any of the core items as his first major one to devastating effect
Early Game
In the early game, we start with a Wraith Band and a set of Tangoes to rush an early Ring of Aquila. Wraith Band gives you very good early stats, buffing Morphling's **** early game damage. 'es for when things are getting ugly.
is the first item that we are going to complete.Granted, it is a bit expensive but it gives you almost 5 armor, 18 damage and some decent mana regeneration for when you need to spam Waveform or when you need to get the **** out of some situation or need to get tanky to get near teh fookin tower.
is the choice of boots for Morphling because of stats and attack-speed.'nuff said.
is made due the amazing stats that is provides and it also builds into Drum of Endurance which is very core to my build of Morphling.
Mid game
This is the part where you start to come online with your mid-game oriented item choices.
is a downright AMAZING item on morphling as it gives you 9+ to all stats (almost as good as Ultimate Orb) along with a very handy boost to attack and movement speed (morph's movespeed is ****).It is also less expensive than Ultimate Orb and has a much easier buildup.
. Morphling is one of the only heroes on which linkens sphere is said to be core(the other being [[weaver).This item gives you 15+ to all stats which is all that Morphlingreally needs ,stats and more stats.Also increases your survivability by a tonne as now what you could not formerly dodge with Waveform is negated by Linken's Sphere's spell block!This item enables Morphling to do his trademark Shotgun combo with ease as he now has a guaranteed escape via replicate as well as a backup if **** hits the fan!
is THE item for Morphling.This item gives you everything you need, and then some more.25+ to all stats along with 250 bonus health and mana enables Morphling to safely convert all of his strength into agility as early as 25 minutes into the game without the worry of having a **** health pool.
This also covers up one of Morphling's greatest weakness, that is a lack of disable/semi-disable when not in strength mode. A percentage based movement speed slow ensures that the target can never run out of your sight and a massive slow to the attack-speed makes enemy carries very ineffective against you.
Late Game
After you have your Linken's Sphere and Eye of Skadi you become a tanky beast with a lot of burst, but you still don't have a way of dealing high dependent DPS or sustaining yourself in prolonged fights other than the small lifesteal from Helm of the Dominator which you got along the way.
.One item.Boom.Nobody gonna stand in front of you now.What this item gives you is a tonne of survivability and a free Aegis if things go sideways.Just think about it,at a stage in the game where you are hitting 300 a pop 2 times a second;3.5 seconds of 175% lifesteal is godsent.
Spoiler: Click to view
if we consider 300 damage per hit and 2 hits a second, we get a grand total of 7 hits,dealing a total of 2100 damage,heals you for 2100 + 0.75 * 2100= 2100 + 1575= 3675 health.
Daedalus gives us an average increase of 35% in attack damage, which is amazing for your DPS.
A very situational item, as its main utility in the late game is more or less negated with the pickup of a Monkey King Bar.It grants you 60 damage and 60 attack-speed,which is nice too.
Many people consider this to be a early game item on Morphling, and,well it is...but its pretty damn amazing 60 minutes into the game too when the enemy carries have run out of Black King Bar's and your magic damage starts to shine again.
This item is downright amazing on Morphling as it capitalizes on one thing that Morphlingexcels in doing,that is, maximizing his primary stat. Ethereal Blade reduces the enemy's magic resistance by 40% and hits them with a scaling nuke which deals 70 + 2 time the holder's primary stat as damage.This makes Morphling ******edly strong.I will do the calculations in the next chapter.
adds yet another escape skill to your already sneaky Morphling, also the illusions benifit greatly from the agility derived damage, making them hit like real-life Crystal Maidens (that is a lot of damage from a Manta Style illusion by the way).Good item.Consider when pushing lanes is your priority and the enemies have a lot of pesky projectile stuns.
There are basically two ways of playing Morphling.
Either you farm and get your late-game items like Eye of Skadi and Satanic or you go early game with a rushed Ethereal Blade and pwn faces left and right :{D
Early-game
At level one, you have a choice.If you are going mid and there is no roamer in the opposite team (A-La Mirana),you start with a point in morph agility and morph exactly 3 points of strength into agility.Why 3 you ask? because your attack damage at level 1 is PATHETIC (39 to be exact).Its so bad that even with a Wraith Band and the bonus agility from morph agility, it only comes to 50, and 53 seems like a fancy number :3
After that,you will have no problems in last hitting with your attack damage increasing by 3 per level and the early Ring of Aquila nearly removing all questions of lack of attack damage.
But if you think that you are going to be Ganked, Waveform is a good option as it gives you a very reliable escape skill on a low cooldown.
In any case, you should not leave the lane until you get Ring of Aquila, Power Treads and Bracer.Seriously just don't ****ing move.Stay put and farm.When i say stay put in lane, i don't mean that you should not go and help team mates if there is a fight in the river.
Mid-Game
When you reach the middle game, Morphling's true power comes into play.Split pushing,Teamfighting,solo skilling, you name it, he does it.You become a monster, everybody fears you.You + any hero is basically a free kill.And its not your damage at this point of the game.Its your utility.No, seriously.A single strength powered stun is enough to kill an enemy hero 15-20 minutes into the game.You have your Drum of Endurance so that your team has above average ganking capabilities.Also,your nukes are pretty spam-able, making you a hero to be feared when along with his team.
There are so many things that you can do as a mid-game Morphling.you can Waveform ahead of your prey and knock them back for the team to finish them ,Use replicate for across the map ganks and puck-level skill baits,use yourself as a bait (not recommended but,you gotta do what you gotta do right?).As they say,"sky's the limit" with Morphling.
Also, if you want to retain the edge that you have acquired in the mid game, you need to keep stacking camps and farm them with Waveform (radiant/dire side hard and moderate camps can be damaged with a single Waveform for maximum effeciency)
Late-Game
This is the part in the game where you reach your full potential.At this point in the game, pickoffs become increasingly difficult for most carries due to Ghost Scepter pickups from the supports.Fortunately,this is a blessing in disguise for Morphling as now he can use his nukes to maximum efficiency or bait out the support's precious black king bars *HUE HUE HUE HUE*
At this point in the game, the only,only carriy that can even stand in front of you are Medusa, Terrorblade, Phantom Lancer and Faceless Void.Even Spectre melts to his nuke + hits combo, Faceless Void has his luck factor, Terrorblade wins only in certain niche conditions and lancer is cancer anyways, so it can safely be said that Morphling has one of the most solid late game potential in the game.
Remember, if you die, you lose.You lose.Your ancient defence is ****.That is why Morphling is often played as a mid hero with a backup farmer in case you feel like derping and go #YOLO into the enemy team.
Also, the items are situational.If you are getting pwned by that Faceless Void with 2 Mjollnir's and 2 Daedalus's, make a ****ing heavens halberd and take him downtown.If he has a Monkey King Bar, make a Scythe of Vyse, type "EZ" in all chat and proceed to take him downtown.
as a wise man(me) once said,"everything is situational.#YOLO"
The early game is the same, only in this case you play more defensively and farm like a spectre would for her Sacred Relic.This can prove to be very difficult when the enemy team becomes dedicated to shutting down.In this case, use replicate on cooldown and keep your illusion in the jungle or near an inner tower, so that you can just replicate out and say, "Suck it hoes" to 3 dissapointed heroes.Another alternative is to Waveform into the trees and Teleport out.But this costs more mana (yeah, it does) so you might want to have a fail-safe.
Having a stacked camp or two is very beneficial when playing this kind of morph because it gives you a tonne of gold and experience.This method is especially effective if the enemy does not have *******s like Tinker, Timbersaw, bat rider and Dark Seer.Seriously, **** these guys.They take away your jungle stacks.
Mid-Game
Its pretty difficult to get that amount of farm without getting killed but once you get it, your contribution in the game skyrockets.Now you have a ****-tonne of agility and the almighty Ethereal Blade, enabling you to start hunting for lonely supports who are just trying to cross the river to do that ancient ward.BOOM.KA-POW!They dead man.
Rinse repeat.Get money.Get items.Win game.
You have to be careful about being caught out of position without a replicate, as now you will only have Waveform to get out, which is not bad, but you have to expend a lot more mana to get out and then waste time going to the base and then farming again.
Beware that this approach involves very high risk as if your team cannot handle the game untill you come online, you will die many times before getting Ethereal Blade and get a very late EB, considerably reducing your damage output for the earier stages of the game.
. If you don't buy this, you might as well not support my friend.
iron branches These are purchased to make into a Magic Wand which give good stats and free up inventory slots.Also, GG BRANCH OP.
] For you and your carry.Random fact:Did you know that Tangoes give you more health than Healing Salve?
This is an amazing item on morphling because it gives you that required burst mana and health regen to live through that unexpected gank
You have one of the lowest movement speeds in the game.get them as soon as possible.
This is your trusty friend as a support, gives you a lot of stats and can be made into drums, which are always nice =D
observer wards] You didn't fly the courier.buy these babies.
Mid-Game
A core item because of its amazing stats and utility.Get ASAP.
Oh boy, I like to call this item, "the playmaker".Its always fun to see the enemy carry go 900 units (force + adaptive strike) away from you or your carry or you. *shooes away annoying ursa*
Mid-Game
After getting this item, you can disable the enemy carry for 8 seconds. 8 ****ING SECONDS. Think about that.
It's fun to see a White halo run over the battlefield, slowing and hurting everybody.Works amazingly in conjunction with Waveform.
They don't like your stuns.Give them the finger with this item.Also, nice stats and regen. You can give this to your carry for those pesky BKB through disables.
This item is good, but not that good. The duration is way too less for you to anything with this outside of a fight (which is surprisingly not the best place to do **** with replicate.)
But, when Hybriding heroes like Tiny, you can feel the piss snake down the pants of the enemy team when they realize that they just wasted everything to nuke down Tiny, just to find out that it wasn't him, but his buddy bud Morphling.
This item is so good on Morphling that i would rush it immediately after my core mid game items were it not for its cost.you are too tanky,too much of a high target for the enemy team, and too worthless for your own team to care what will happen if you YOLO into the enemy team.
Also, you can cast it on your own team member.so, yaaay!
one word.AMAZING.This is the item to make on Morphling.Its too good,does too much for it's cost.
There has been a recent turn of events leading to Morphling being played as a support in some games.Please remember that Morphling as a support is only played on the basis of 2 things : his insane amount of health combined with a stun which contests with Primal Roar in terms of duration and Light Strike Array in terms of cooldown.
yes, 4.5 seconds on a 10 second cooldown.
It is not easy to farm fast as a Morphling because he has no inbuilt farming mechanism, nor can he amplify his farm by items (pure farm items like battlefury).The best way by which I farm with Morphling is... a bit complicated.
This method works on both dire and radiant side.What you basically do is, you take the two camps nearest to your base (the hard and the medium one) and then you stack them.Then you Waveformthrough both of the camps.What this does is, it decreases the mana cost as well as time required to farm the jungle as you are dealing 360 damage to both of the stacked camps.It usually takes about 20 seconds to destroy both camps.
Farming the jungle:Process
Stack both camps.
Waveform from one camp to another.
[*}hit creeps till Waveform is off cooldown.
this method is is effective if farming in the lane is dangerous.
The second method of farming is via replicate.
now in this method, there are again two sub-parts (i know its boring..but essential)
One method you can adopt is replicating an allied hero and use him to last hit.
A special mention goes to Axe who can bring Morphling's farming levels equal to that of most other carries in the game who have farming skills ( Lunaesque.).This is because of the fact that Counter Helix works on his illusions, and that Morphling's illusions have the tankability of a real hero (0% damage amplification).
The second method is when you have heroes that are able to generate enormous amounts of pressure for you to farm safely.Beware that this method only works at maximum effeciency after level 11 when you can make an illusion that lasts for 45 seconds.
Farming with your illusions:Process
>make illusion of allied hero.
>make him walk to some other lane,while you are farming in your own lane.
>clear wave in your lane and
replicate to another lane and clear it.
>?????
>profit.
This method enables Morphling to theoretically farm 2 lanes at once, Tinker being the only other hero capable of doing so without the use of a teleport scroll every time.
If you have an Earthshaker on your team, you can also farm three lanes at once with the aid of a teleport scroll.
Process
make illusion of allied hero.
make him walk to some other lane,while you are farming in your own lane.
clear wave in your lane and replicate to another lane and clear it.
teleport to third lane which is being blocked by Earthshaker, rinse and repeat.
?????
Super-profit.
I hope that this helps all those people who have difficulties in farming as Morphling because he lacks the conventional farming tools (gold acceleration, blink, AoE hand-damage).
In case Morphling is being kited every time and not being able to kill enemies, This is the method that i would recommend following the tips given below:
If ganking before Ethereal Blade, always try to gank from behind, don't use Waveform and pressurize the enemy to either go back and face your pumped up hits or risk going ahead and rotate through the river.You can also push them forward using adaptive strike.Use Waveform to chase.
replicate can be used as a blink in desperate situations.you just need to make an illusion of your enemy and immediately replicate near him.Please take care that this will not work if cannot see your enemy.This is also a very expensive way of gap-closing as replicate has a 80 second cooldown and 175 mana cost.
Buying an early Orb of Venom partially eliminates kiting issues as lets face it, getting hit by OOV slow is like losing your boots to that annoying bounty-hunter when you are playing jungle axe. (too many times bruh ;_;)
Now,let us consider that all of the base strength is transformed to agility
then we get
Strength 0 + 75
agility 188 + 80
So, we get 150(base health) + 75 * 19 + 250(from Eye of Skadi = 400 + 1425 = 1825 health
We get an attack damage of 133.5 (average Morphling attack damage at level 25) + 79(morphed agility) + 80(derived from agility given by items) + 111 ( additional damage from items) = 430 damage.
After taking Daedalus's damage increase of 35%, we get 580 attack damage per hit.This,coupled up with his 2.3 attacks per second, result in a DPS of 1335
we have a total agility of 268, meaning that adaptive strike does 80 + 268 * 2 = 80 + 536 = 616 damage. Before reductions and 462 damage after reductions.
Now let us consider something here.
All base heroes have a base magic resistance of 25 %. Ethereal Blade reduces magic resistance be 40%, meaning that the target will receive 55% amplified damage.Also observe that the magic resistance reduction happens before the damage is dealt implying that the damage from Ethereal Blade itself is also amplified.
So, 606 + 606 * 5/100 = 606 + 30.3 = 636.3 damage after amplification.
Let us see how much damage adaptive strike will deal.
Yeah.The Shotgun.Your trademark combo that makes carries and tanks alike cry.
The speciality of this combination is not overwhelming damage, it is it's frequent usability.It can be used on a 30 second cooldown. That's cool right?
Ethereal Blade on your enemy.
[2]Use Waveform on him.
[3]Immediately follow it up with adaptive strike.
[4]?????
[5]Profit
Now,before you scream into my eears, "YOU DEMON YOU HAVE DEFILED THE ORIGINAL SHOTGUN!!!!", let me explain something to you.After the changes of 6.82, Ethereal Blade has become a projectile which moves at a speed of 1200.You might say,"so what?".Here's what. Waveform travels at a speed of 1250.Didn't understand?
This means that the original Waveform into ethereal into adaptive strike combo is not possible/extremely difficult.This is because the Waveform will hit before Ethereal Blade,potentially leaving you vulnerable because if you use your skills before the ethereal bolt hits, you are missing on a LOT of damage so you have to wait for the bolt to hit.
Still,this combo does a ****-tonne of damage and is a very good addition to Morphling's burst.
Morphling loves friends,infact he will go a long way to get some >:)
Allies
is a very good baby-sitter for you as she has everything you lack:Good mana regeneration for the whole team and a good disable and a good semi-disable.Also has been buffed a lot so no reason not to pick her now :3.
is amazing in conjunction with Morphling as he enables him to potentially forgo Ethereal Blade for something more useful (like Butterfly).Also can give health to Morphling in adverse situations.
stuns people, slows them,speeds you up, and can make good use of Ethereal Blade damage amp.Profit.
:stuns and hexes are always a good combination.
Enemies
Silences -He's a prick.Silencer excels in shutting down spell-reliant heroes and team compositions. Last Word forces Morphling to use one of his high mana cost skills pretty early in the game,forcing your supports to waste money on Clarity. -silences Morphling,who is very spell reliant early on in the game and also has a very spam able nuke to harass him down. -Has one of the longest silences in the game.Counters you early on, but can't do much past 20 minutes
So guys, I hope you enjoyed my guide to Water Gun Morphling and will play him a lot more since he is a very fun hero to play and gives you the satisfaction of playing a hero that isn't Sniper(yeah I know you secretly play Sniper you scrub).
I hope that this guide is to everyone's liking.Please feel free to give suggestions.
If you really liked my guide, please check out my other guides
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