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Stout Shield
Tango
Healing Salve
Poor Man's Shield
Ring of Basilius
Boots of Speed
Radiance
Boots of Travel
Manta Style
Abyssal Blade
Black King Bar
Butterfly
Eye of Skadi
Heart of Tarrasque
Satanic
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Hello my fellow Dota 2 players!
My name is Allegiance (ingame name is Ghost) and i decided to create a nice, little guide for...
*drums*...
, the Soul Keeper!
I played DotA 1 since ~2005 or 2006, but only on a Battlenet pubstyle level. 2 years ago i switched to Dota 2, when i finally got a Beta invite. Now i am having around 4000hrs of Dota 2 and i am playing on a more competetive level with my team.
I really like playing illusion based heroes such as 
Phantom Lancer and 
Naga Siren, but my favourite is Terrorblade. I'm a little sadistical, so i basically love the way, enemies are not even able to leave their side of the map from ~minute 25 onwards, because you will singlehandedly take towers and later on Rax if they do.
It is in fact just winning without taking fights :)
(If you ever played against Furion and thought, he is annyoing, you've never seen a decent Terrorblade going for a Radiance build!)
I'm german so there might be some grammer mistakes in this guide. Please forgive me for all of them!
-high base armor
-decent base regen
-high base movement speed
-decent attack animation
-insane farmspeed
-high agility gain
-strong, spammable illsusions
-very good damage with Metamorphosis
-second life with Sunder
-low strength gain
-pretty weak without Metamorphosis
-actually not the best late game hero for manfighting
Allright let's talk about Terrorblade's Skills and why to level them up the way I suggest:
REFLECTION:
This ability summons an illusion of the target enemy hero, that attacks and slows that hero for a certain amount of time. The illusion can't be controlled or targetetted.
His first spell is mainly a utility spell, that turns into a nice source of damage later on. (Provided the enemy carry has some farm)
It slows by a whopping 60%, which is insanely good for a level 1 spell!
Upon levelling it up, the duration as well as the damage dealt by the illusion increase.
Since it got nerfed in the latest patch, levelling it up instead of stats is pretty good now, since it scales better with single skillpoints. However it is still more important to max out Conjure Image and Metamorphosis as early as possible for maximum pushing and farming power.
CONJURE IMAGE:
Terrorblade's second ability creates an illusion of yourself at your current location. Those illusions are pretty much the strongest in the game (except for 
Phantasm) and thanks to the low CD and low manacost, you can pretty much spam them. Use this spell to either farm on multiple locations or to push towers very fast. If you go for Radiance, splitpushing and splitfarming with them is really, really easy and will leave your opponents crying. But also your team won't be able to farm a lot anymore, since you can easily farm your safelane, your jungle and the midlane at the same time. Later on you should farm the enemy jungle with your illusions.
METAMORPHOSIS:
THIS my friends is pretty much the signature spell of Terrorblade!
It turns him into a demon with a ranged attack and some bonus damage. Did I say "some"? i wanted to say 80 freaking bonusdamage for ~1minute! Oh yeah, and it is of course base damage, which means it scales with damage enhancing things like Double Damage and of course your illusions. Activate it for teamfights and towerpushes. But be careful, since its cooldown is actually kinda long. It still is pretty OP so you should max it out on level 7. During Metamorphosis try to use Conjure Image as much as possible.
SUNDER:
Terrorblade's ultimate swaps his own HP with the HP of his target. It is pretty useful during ganks or fights. Be sure not to use too late, because you might get disabled and not be able to use it when dropping low. Basically this ability can do the same thing a Satanic can do for you and may be able to turn the tides of a fight in your favor.
In this section I will try to give you some insight on when to get what item and why those items are good for Terrorblade. I will mainly focus on core items, because i feel like, there is not that much to say about items like Butterfly or Eye of Skadi.
First of lets talk about boots (even though there is not that much to talk about):
If you are going for a fighting and pushing oriented build, buy 
Power Treads! The stat and attackspeed benefit your illusions.
If you want to be really annoying and going for the splitpush oriented build, get Boots of Travel right after the Radiance. This will save you a lot of money for TPs and will boost your farm even more.
I consider this item to be core on Terrorblade because of one reason: Your base armor is absurdly high and so is your base regen. With PMS it is really difficult for your enemies to get some early pressure on you, since you don't care about harrassment anymore. It also gets considerably hard to kill you. Well, a second benefit is, that it makes farming jungle camps a little easier.
This item makes you even tankier and is good for early pushes onto the enemy tower. Also, you want to basically spam your Conjure Image throughout the midgame (especially, if you go Radiance). You can't spam it without some manaregen!
Sometimes it is even worth upgrading it into RoA, but it depends a little on your playstyle and on how well you are farming.
My favorite item on Terrorblade ^.^
It allows you to farm insanely fast with almost no effort, since your illusions get the Burning aura from it. If you go this item, your goal is to farm superfast while splitpushing multiple lanes. It becomes really annoying to deal throughout the midgame and depending on how many towers you get, you can be 6-slotted by 35-45 minutes. Getting around 12+ last hits/minute isn't that hard (personal record is 15LH/min, but you can have even more). Keep in mind that your own team won't be able to farm a lot, if you are doing this, since you will farm 2 lanes and your own jungle simultanously.
First of: Only get this item, if you are going for the fighting Terrorblade.
For splitpush Terrorblade this delays your Radiance too much and afterwards, getting Manta Style is simply better, because you can farm it in almost no time.
Drums are nice on TB, because with the fighting build you want to fight and take towers, and the stats are great for you and your illusions. Also the aura and the active are just awesome for early pushes and fights.
Alright guys, this item is pretty OP on Terrorblade and i seriously don't understand, why many players proritize 
Sange and Yasha over this. Illusions just scale so damn well with the base damage steroid from Metamorphosis AND on top of that you can use Manta twice during a level 4 Metamorphosis. Not getting this item is a huge mistake and if you are hellbent on SnY, get both (NOT recommended!!!!).
SnY gives a little more MS, but Manta gives more damage, more IAS and an active, that can dodge projectiles and is serious a damage boost during Metamorphosis. With Manta Style you can tear down towers extremely fast and it also boosts your ability to splitfarm and splitpush! (especially with the Radiance build.)
'What to get after I finished my core items?', you may ask.
Overall it is best to just get a lot of stats, since you are an illusion based hero.
After the Manta Style i usually prefer getting Eye of Skadi or Heart of Tarrasque, just so your illusions can't be nuked down anymore, which means your enemy either needs multiple heroes to bring them down, or needs to commit a core hero to defend against them.
After that, I would recommend a Butterfly, just because it adds an insane amount of DPS to your illusions and they become even harder to kill. By that point you can take T2 tower with ease and there won't be much your enemies can do about it.
Black King Bar should only be gotten, if desperately needed, since it does not do much for your illusions. Especially for the fighting build it is still a fairly strong purchase.
For your last items there is a lot of options. In general, items that provide a lot of stats are better for splitpushing, while at that point raw DPS items are better for fighting.
In this section I will do some explaining on what to do with Terrorblade from the early stages to the late game.
Splitpush Build:
Early Game:
During this stage, your main goal is to get as many last hits as possible. How you do it does not really matter ;)
If you have a pretty much free lane against some solo offlane hero, try not to push the lane early on and just farm near your tower. Always have one eye on the minimap to spot incoming ganks, because even one death will delay your Radiance and you need that item really fast. If you have nice microskills, use your Conjure Image to stack camps in the jungle, that can be farmed later on. Also you can use it to scout unwarded areas or use them to get some additional last hit damage.
Harrass your enemy with Reflection, if he comes close enough and maybe net a kill with the help of your supports. ONLY do it, if he is in range, or your supports provide a nice setup. Loosing last hits to harrass with Reflection is NOT worth it.
If the enemy offlane is weak against pushes (like 
Bounty Hunter go for an early push, as soon as you have 2 points in Metamorphosis. Just use it and try to get an early tower last hit. Use Conjure Image to push even faster during Metamorphosis.
Mid Game:
For you mid game starts, as soon as you pick up your Radiance. By that time, you should start using Conjure Image EVERYTIME it is off cooldown. You can either farm multiple jungle camps or you send one illusion to the midlane to push it and one illusion to your safelane to push it. Never farm a camp or a lane with multiple illusion! Obviously, your main hero should also be farming somewhere else.
A pretty safe way to farm:
Push the lanes with your illusions, while farming your jungle with your hero. If your safelane gets pushed back to your tower, farm there yourself for 1 or 2 waves and then switch to the jungle, while leaving an illusion behind on the lane.
If your enemies are pushing as a team, just go to another lane and push there with Metamorphosis and your illusions. They enemies will have to defend, because you can take towers easily as fast as many 5-man lineups. If they send heroes away to defend, your team should also be able to defend. If necessary, just use your Boots of Travel to help your team out. At that point you should easily defend a tower 5vs4 or 5vs3. (cause enemies went back to defend against you, remember? :) )
During the midgame, as you gather more and more items, it will become really hard and time consuming to defend against your illusions. Usually you can slowly kill T2 towers by repeadetly pushing onto them with your illsions.
Late Game:
If the game is going well and you got the T2 tower on your safelane, you should transition into your offlane and start farming the enemy jungle with illsuions, as well as pushing onto the T2 and T3 tower on that lane. During this stage you are most likely already fully equipped (or at least almost) and you don't need to focus on splitfarming anymore. Just constantly push midlane + 1 sidelane.
Best way to do so:
Send one illusion to the midlane. The other one should be used with Manta Style to push the sidelane with 3 illusions at one time. Just send them onto the tower to chip away its health. Repeat with ranged rax and then repeat on every lane. To prevent this your enemies have to commit so much, that they have no time to farm, while your team can farm up some items.
If you are really, really far ahead just 5 man push and finish the game.
If the game is not going so well, always put pressure on enemy rax, when they try to push. A farmed Terrorblade can take multiple rax in the same time a whole team can get a T3 tower or 1 set of Rax. (Some heroes can push as fast as Terrorblade, so be carefull trading towers or rax with those heroes!)
Another option is that you use your illusions to skip creeps, when the enemies are trying to push highground. Just maneuver one illusion around the enemies and kill the incoming creepwaves with Radiance burn. This way they won't have creeps to disable backdoor protection, which makes it considerably hard to push highground.
Fighting Build:
Early Game:
This is pretty much the same as it is in the splitpush build. Just farm the lane and get up your core items. (Treads + Drums usually)
Mid Game:
This is where you should start taking towers, everytime Metamorphosis is up. Towers will just melt and it is not really easy to defend against it. Best use of this build is in conjunction with some strong teamfighters or tower pushers, that make it hard to engage onto them. (eg 
Shadow Shaman, 
Tidehunter, etc)
If the game is not going well, try to splitpush with your illusions and get up some more items. Keep in mind, that it is a lot slower and a lot less effective, than doing this with a Radiance, but it still isn't too bad.
Late Game:
If the game goes late with this build, you are at a disadvantage compared to the splitpush build, because you will not be as stacked on gold and items. But relax, you are stil doing fine at this stage with Terrorblade. He still pushes really fast, if you win a fight.
BUT, there are a lot of carries, that can easily beat you in fights at that point, so you need to be careful, when to go for a fight and when not.
Heroes like 
Faceless Void, Phantom Lancer or 
Morphling will wreck you in a head-on fight. Of course it also depends on the rest of the team, but in general, I would try to get a pickoff or sneak Roshan, before going for the final push.
A chapter, where I will focus on Heroes, that are really strong against Terrorblade or really strong partnered up with Terrorblade will be added soon!
I really hope you guys enjoy this guide and put it to good use.
If so, I even might write some more guides on heroes you would like to see!
I'm looking forward to hear, what you guys think about it and I'll be glad about some (constructive) criticism ;)
Greetings Allegiance/Ghost
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