The MLG Guide to Terrorblade [Updating for 7.00]

Introduction

what's up everyone it's Scarce here
It's 2017 and I'm still updating this guide, which is full of completely dead memes, and struggled to work in a text form as opposed to video anyway?
Yeah, sorry to say it, but I am. While there are some limitations, like lens flares, audio files, and general video memes, I can still take the piss at whatever other memes have surfaced... and I know most of them.
Although, first and foremost this is supposed to be an informative guide, which makes my job considerably harder, since MLG montages always were about 15% gameplay and 85% editing. That said, I've a lot of work to do and I'm rambling again.

This is a guide to TERRORBLADE, one of the ballerest heroes in Dota 2. He's a hard carry with a focus on illusions and is essentially Naga Siren or Cancer Lancer for people that aren't *******. What does he do? Well, Terrorblade is one giant badass demon whose backstory has a deeper conspiracy afoot.

Lore

Terrorblade is the demon marauder--an outlaw hellion whom even other demons fear. A cosmic iconoclast, he stole from the Demon Lords, ignored the codified rites that should have bound his behavior, and broke every law of the seven Infernal Regions. For his crimes, he was taught this lesson: even Hell has a hell. A short, brutal trial ensued, with many dead on all sides, and he was finally incarcerated in Foulfell, a hidden dimension where demonkind imprison their own.

But Foulfell is no normal prison. In this dark mirror of reality, demons are sentenced to gaze eternally into the twisted reflection of their own souls. But instead of suffering, Terrorblade made himself master of his own reflected worst self--a raging, thieving demon of unimaginable power. With his inner beast under sway, he destroyed the fractal prison walls and burst free to turn his terror loose upon all creation.

Where is the conspiracy, you ask? Well, there are eleven letters in TERRORBLADE. Eleven subtract eight is three. There are three points on a triangle. And a triangle is a symbol of the Illuminati. Therefore, Terrorblade is Illuminati confirmede *airhorns n *****

7.00, where to start? It was a pretty major patch, and irritatingly I've now got to update all my guides. ******** it. New to the game are talents, jungle alterations, more bounty runes, Roshan has once again moved houses, and a couple notable item changes as well. While Terrorblade himself hasn't changed much, a fair bit has changed around him... mostly nerfs, sad to say.

All the 7.00 Changes

Summarised in not-meme form for once:

-Illusions nerfed pretty heavily, now giving a gold and experience bounty equal to 5+[level].
-Damage reduction to buildings increased from 30% to 50%.

I'm sorry, I need a moment, just...

Seriously, WHY WAS THIS NECESSARY

-Illusions now benefit from all attack speed bonuses instead of just Yasha and the Assault Cuirass aura.
-Magic resistance bonuses don't work on illusions now.

Nerfed against buildings, but buffed against heroes. It could be a lot worse, I'll be honest.

What Terrorblade Does

Terrorblade is a melee agility carry with the ability to summon a small number of powerful illusions. He also has a powerful slow, immense early-game kill potential and an ult which turns teamfights and 1v1s around. Terrorblade is such a baller that his voice itself is infused with purified dopesmoke and that is why he sounds so awesome.

Stats

Terrorblade is a squishy hero, and even lategame when you aren't, you'll still feel squishy. He never reaches the feeling of indestructability that Spectre does.

His starting stats of 15/22/19 are low on the Health side, which is a recurring theme. A stat gain of 1.4 in Strength continues on from this, but he has an excellent Agility gain of 3.2 and a solid 1.75 in Intelligence. Combined with his skills, it means that you don't have to worry about damage and instead can build entirely for tank - whether that means Satanic, Butterfly or numerous Eye of Skadis is dependent on the game.

Spells

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REFLECTION
Changed in 6.85. Reflection works much like its old incarnation, in that it slows enemies and creates a damaging illusion of them. The difference now, is that it hits all enemies in a 900 radius around Terrorblade. RADIUS. To put it into context, the average spell range is 800, so you have a long-ranged slow, with a damaging illusion, that hits everyone in a teamfight. It's as ******** as it sounds. I used to level stats over this past level 1. I can't anymore. As a result, I'm sad. Just max it last, it's a good skill but your other ones are better.
CONJURE IMAGE
This is your farming ability. This is maxed second to maximise your farming abilities. With max-level illusions, you will be able to farm absurdly. It's also the ability that makes you a carry, but carrying your team doesn't net you money so try and keep that to a minimum. Illusions take 400% of your damage, so they're extremely squishy and as a result farming the jungle isn't as easy. You also can't eat towers as fast due to illusions dealing 25% less damage to towers. Abuse the 0.15 second cast point, especially in fights.
METAMORPHOSIS
This ability is maxed first for the +80 damage. It has a number of benefits, most related to money: extra last hitting power, kill towers for $$, farm neutrals faster. Ok, I guess it's good for killing Heroes too, especially early game. The bonus damage is BASE damage, meaning your illusions get it - very important to know, as it is your damage steroid that makes your illusions so dangerous lategame! However, if you move away from your illusions they revert back to melee form. A trick is to activate Manta Style, and then use Meta - this way, you'll trigger the shorter, melee form cooldown for the item - not to mention the illusions will be doing 33% damage instead of 28%.
SUNDER
This is a pretty gimmicky ability in itself. At a first glance, it seems ******edly OP and you're wrong because it tends to be a 'win-more' ultimate - if you're ahead you don't need it, and if you're behind it won't save you. However, 550 range means that it's very, very good for turning engagements in close games. And do remember, Terrorblade is a hero that excels at outfarming his opponents and fencing them in to a small section of their map. It doesn't need to be skilled at 6 - take it when you think you're going to need it due to ganks or engagements - this is usually level 8-10 for me.

Talents

Level 10: +6 HP regen OR +15 attack speed

The HP regen isn't hugely noticeable, as it's not enough to keep you alive in combat, your illusions don't get it, and you don't take a lot of damage whilst farming. Conversely, 15 attack speed DOES apply to your illusions, so it functions more like 45 attack speed before you get Manta Style. Take this one, seriously.

Level 15: +175 Health OR +25 damage

Since damage doesn't apply to your illusions, and Health does, and Terrorblade has criminally low Health anyway, you go for the durability talent here. +25 damage on the main hero isn't really noticeable when you're hitting for over 250 by this time anyway.

Level 20: +15 movement speed OR +15 Agility

This is the only real choice - but again, most of the time the Agility will be better. +2 armour (to you and your illusions), +15 attack speed, +15 base damage... it's an excellent talent that plays right into your strengths as opposed to shoring up a weakness.

Level 25: -30s Sunder cooldown OR +15 all stats

10 second cooldown on Sunder....is kind of not that good. Long explanation why - in lategame teamfights, you only really ever get one Sunder if that, because by the time you need to Sunder, you've either won the fight, or you're the last man standing and trying to take down as many with you as possible.
Therefore, +15 to all stats is HUGE. Terrorblade was designed to function with the +20 stats from the now-removed Attribute Bonus, and with his talents, you get far more than that in equivalence.

Early Game

Your starting items are important. Pick up some regen, a Stout Shield, and some Iron Branches for cost-efficiency. Why get Branches? Because they look like weed, and as we all know, if it looks like weed, it may very well be weed and weed is good.

First item on check is a Quelling Blade. This item lets you quickscope those creeps with +32% damage and an active. This translates to your illusions! 3 quickscopers > 1 quickscoper
Iron Talon isn't as good after the nerfed cooldown, and to be honest it was somewhat overrated on Terrorblade anyway.

Treads or Travels?

This wasn't even a question before the patch dropped - Travels were far superior, because although Treads gave you a noticeable Health boost, Travels eased your poor mobility and gave you much greater map movement, which allowed you to get your push on much more effectively.

Now, illusions are getting the +25 attack speed from Treads, which begs the question - is it worth sacrificing map omnipresence for a massive power spike in fighting? The answer is 'maybe' - it's game dependent. That said, it wouldn't be an Terathiel guide if I didn't recommend ratting, so consider my advice to go Travels first. However, I don't usually get Travels until after Dragon Lance and Yasha, because your early-game pushing potential is very important and shouldn't be forfeited under any circumstance.

If you do go Treads, it's probably best to sell them for Travels after either Manta Style or Eye of Skadi.

---

You need no other farming items, you're that much of a baller. For defensive purposes, since treads are the inferior boots on Terrorblade, grab Infused Raindrops. You've got a dozen armour by level 4, and despite global HP buffs you are still vulnerable to nukes - Raindrops mitigates this, meaning that you're less vulnerable to ganks and can potentially join fights early on to take advantage of your monstrous DPS.

SICK BANK M9

A Ringg of Aquila is mandatory - the extra mana regen is necessary to keep you and your magnificence casting things.

Your first actual item is an obligatory Dragon Lance. The added range bumps you up to 690 in Metamorphosis, so while you're not out-ranging towers you are safe from most counterpush. By now, you should have already taken the tower in your lane, but if you haven't, nothing changes. It's time for action. Ping your team relentlessly until all of you are in the mid lane, and drop the tower like your mixtape. Push for tier 2s with the remaining duration of Metamorphosis, and back off when it expires. You'll probably notice enemy heroes coming in to try and stop you. Ignore them, let your team cause a distraction, and keep hitting buildings. Farm while waiting for Meta to come off cooldown, and rinse and repeat until you've got a significant tower advantage.

While this is happening, you're building Yasha into Boots of Travel for xXx_MLG_xXx farm of the whole map. Travels turn you into a Naga-style rat, but you're BETTER than her because you have demon roids on your E. Naga will... send you to sleep with a lullaby. Verrrrry impressive.

Midgame

So you have your Boots, Dragon Lance, and Yasha. Since nerfs (thanks IceFrog) to illusions have been big, your tower damage to tier 2s is considerably reduced, and to push them in a reasonable time, it's best to farm up some damage before resuming your insane deathball. As for hero damage, Terrorblade is a carry that, while vulnerable, has very high damage output at all stages of the game thanks to Metamorphosis. However, until you have some STRENGTH ITEMS, you're still very vulnerable.

What items give Terrorblade Strength? AMAZING ONES

You are an illusion hero. Illusion heroes are the best because they have many times the MLG of other heroes, but they need lots of stats as illusions do not benefit from straight +damage items like Basher or Divine Rapier. Terrorblade, however, doesn't have many illusions compared to other heroes (two compared to Chaos Knight's 4 and Phantom Lancer's 6 billion), and as such you need to go for a MANTA STYLE like the BALLER that YOU ARE.

Manta Style gives Terrorblade some STYLE to go with his SWAG. I've rejected Sange and Yasha because it's an item you'll have to disassemble lategame, and the two illusions from Manta Style give a massive boost to your DPS.

It's a picture of Anti-Fun but Terrorblade follows the same principle.

Eye of Skadi is your next item, because it eliminates your biggest issue, that is your lack of a health pool. What Skadi does is make you a monstrously effective siege machine. Usually, here, you can deathball the tier 2s that you hadn't taken by split-pushing, and even though Metamorphosis doesn't persist through death, Aegis of the Immortal is worth picking up as it allows you to fully commit to fights and high ground pushes. If you're up against a lineup that you're currently unable to push high ground against, then split push until you get a few more items.

Rat doto best doto.

Watching a really, really good Terrorblade like matrice or Zenoth... or me farm should leave you somewhat impressed albeit mildly nauseated from secondary inhalation of weedsmoke. Jungle changes in 7.00 were pretty cruel to farm vacuums like Terrorblade, who quite easily could clear the entire jungle and two lanes every minute. Now, you're going to be focused more on pushing lanes (which is why I also recommend an early Boots of Travel, as it not only makes it easier to push but saves a lot of gold on TP scrolls). It's risky to show yourself in the lane, so keep an eye on the map and know approximately where your opposing heroes are. Using your illusions, you can and should safely farm the enemy jungle as you yourself don't have to be there. It starves them of resources, and generates more for your team.

Don't AFK farm in the jungle. Pushing lanes is your primary goal. You'll require good micromanagement, especially early-game, when your illusions don't do a lot of damage and you're trying to last hit in two lanes at once. Conjure Image can be used on cooldown without mana issues, especially if you bought Power Treads. Don't avoid fights, either - a well-executed Terrorblade starves the enemy team of the farm they'll need to contest him, and this only gets amplified the longer the game goes and the more creeps the illusions can kill in their duration. As I said before, Terrorblade is the blessing Lord Gaben gave to Naga Siren players who hated being cancer. Says the guy writing an MLG guide.

">1.5 Strength gain is for weaklings!" - Gaben

Your team should be protecting you and allowing you to farm. Report any of them that try and take dosh.

"But you were on the other side of the map!" they complain. Travelboots next to them and render their argument invalid.

You are the team's hard carry, and it's your job to be an *******. With travelboots, your farming capabilities are almost omnipresent.

The general idea is that every time Metamorphosis is up, take an objective or a teamfight. Off a won teamfight, you can quite easily push a tower, or take Roshan.

Lategame

playing Terrorblade
It's in the lategame
you're farmed
Since you've been keeping safe, you should emerge from the jungle,your side of the map looking somewhat like...

this.
Now is the time to start wrecking faces and pushing towers... well, more than you already were. A game will eventually get to the point where no matter how much of a scrub you are, Terrorblade reaches a critical mass and just can't be stopped. How long this takes depends on your farming rate, and Terrorblade farms pretty damn fast. #getmoredoshthanNatures

Get rekt Furion.

If you haven't already, now you definitely take Roshan and try to end. If this isn't possible, your next item should probably enable you. The entire idea of Terrorblade is to dominate the early game with superior push, and then choke the enemy through split push while you farm up enough items to end the game. No hero scales infinitely, and if the enemy supports start getting enough items they can cause you a lot of problems. As you've got total map control, it's not easy for them to get items, but it's still a concern you should always bear in mind.

With a nice cadre of items, and hopefully an Aegis, you're ready to resume the 5-man pushing you left off at 15 minutes.

The Many Situationals

You probably thought from looking at the Situational Items 'lol this guy iznt qwikskopr, he n00b skrub lel' and you're wrong.


First, three Eye of Skadi. Multiples of this item is absolutely legit and I usually get two in the course of the game. They're the best stat item in the game, and the best item to mitigate Terrorblade's sole weakness - poor durability. Consider it not as 25 damage from the Agility, but 55, since you have an additional 120% base damage in the form of Conjure Image.


Ethereal Blade gives you a mad nuke so you have a legit reason to scream outbefore you 1-hit KO someone with your absurdly high Agility. Synergises with... your stat gain, and the stats on E-Blade are pretty sikk in itself. Also a potential Ember Spirit counter, since you're unlikely to lock him down without lots of help and it can potentially stop his counterpush long enough to take high ground. Please don't do this often because it's honestly kind of bad, but situationally... might actually win you the game. Can also function as a less autistic Sunder-Dagon combo.


Get Linken's Sphere when you are up against Doom and his cohort of wankers, including but not limited to Batrider, Bane and Vengeful Spirit. Get this instead of the ever-reliable BKB.


Satanic is your general 6th item, as it allows you to manfight super well and lifesteal incredibly hard with your monstrous DPS. With a Satanic, you can go screaming through their team.


Silver Edge is your choice pick for dealing with evasion. It's become a stat item, and you can gank really hard with it and Reflection. Against unprepared enemies, it can also pass as an escape, but the main purpose of this item is for manfighting someone and reminding them that you had sexual relations with their mother last night as you beat them into the ground.
This is so wrong


Daedalus is the only pure damage item you'll ever need. Adding 81 damage to the primary hero is nice, and takes you up to over 500 a hit, but the critical strike that your illusions get is the real selling point. This item turns you from a tower-killer into a hero destroyer, with the highest single-target DPS in the game bar none. Not even Chaos Knight is close. Such ridiculous damage is usually overkill, so this'll be a rare purchase. Usually, it's better to tank up so you can push and siege more effectively.


Get this only against Elder Titan.


So good it's almost a core item. Pretty much mandatory if you want to try fighting without boots in the ultra-lategame (remembering Terrorblade scales to 9 slots thanks to the backpack). At worst, a well-statted Force Staff on a 14 second cooldown is still really good, and if you're clever you can use the targeted aspect of the active to make even better escapes. The only reason it's not core is because towers don't move, and your main job *is* to kill buildings.

---

You may notice that I don't have Radiance, or MKB in the build. The reason for this is that both items are pretty bad on Terrorblade and if you're going to buy them there better be some dank kush in the deal.
Like so.

Anyway, Terrorblade's illusions are powerful enough that they get more damage from a Manta Swag than the Radiance burn aura - in addition, there aren't enough of them.

MKB is also lackluster on Terrorblade. 5400 is a lot to pay for true strike, since you're already n0_sc0ping like a boss, and the item gives nothing else to your illusions. However, it's one of two things that fixes the issues you have with evasion, and you already have natively high damage so you can afford to pick it up - not before Manta, and probably not before Skadi, though.

Spell Damage - Is Black King Bar worth it?

It's been a fact since the dawn of time, Black King Bar is not only a boring as **** item, but really, really sucks on illusion heroes. Which, of course, raises the question - is it worth getting on Terrorblade?

Sadly, the answer is 'yes'. About half of Terrorblade's damage comes from the real hero himself, which is considerably more than the real Chaos Knight or Naga Siren, and he doesn't have any of the innate evasiveness of Phantom Lancer to defend himself. BKB allows you to dodge disables, and DPS uninterrupted, and also get off a good Sunder if necessary. Most of your games it isn't needed - but sometimes, you will have to grudgingly make it a purchase.

Friends and Foes

Avoid these idiots

Terrorblade's foes are pretty obvious. His major weakness, like many dopesmoker agility carries, is low HP early game. Terrorblade, though, is much worse than others. As such, anyone with high-damage nukes is going to ruin his day, such as Lina, Lion and Skywrath Mage. The absolute worst is Timbersaw, who clears your illusions in seconds throughout the entire game, reduces your main stat, and is generally a huge pain in the ***. Lategame, Ember Spirit is even nastier because Sleight of Fist kills not only your illusions, but your team, and probably you as well. It's a rough matchup against an Ember, and I'm surprised the pros haven't picked him as a TB counter - especially when TB is balanced only by the prevalence of his counters.

The worst support counter is Lion, who instantly pops your illusions no matter how farmed you are, and ruins you early game with disables and nukes. In the unlikely but game-losing event he gets to level 25, he'll remove ALL your illusions with a single mana drain. Really well balanced mechanic, that. Amazing design.

Terrorblade's main defence is high armour so a lot of -armour is going to annoy him as well. But - they need a lot. Like more than a level 3 Slardar ultimate.

Terrorblade synergises well with initiators and disablers that let him stand there and DPS, which is what he does best. Heroes such as Magnus, Enigma and Shadow Shaman allow Terrorblade to get lots of kills. Good supports to lane with Terrorblade are Crystal Maiden, Shadow Shaman and Lion.

Shadow Demon has one skill that makes him your best friend - Disruption. Creating two illusions of you that are both tankier and more damaging than your regular Conjure Images. Stick in the general vicinity of him, and spam it on cooldown to make towers disappear.

Other forms of base damage amplification ( Vengeful Spirit, Sven with Aghs, Magnus) also work, but you simply don't need the extra damage. Rather, it is better to team up with heroes that can keep you alive and hitting things, either through heals, dispels or whatever. Shoutout to the aforementioned Vengeful Spirit, whose swap is just what you need for saving your ***, or bringing your food to you, figuratively speaking.

Ironically, Terrorblade's biggest counters tend to also be his best allies. Timbersaw is incredibly potent, causing a large enough distraction that you can easily sit on the back lines killing anything that comes near. A tanky enough Timber can also blink, or chain onto high ground, and allow you and your team to go ham.

Balance Changelogs

6.80 - Terrorblade added to Dota 2. Is crazy OP, with a 5s 60% A&MS slow with an illusion. At level one.

6.81 - Reflection is now balanced and is actually worth skilling past 1 over stats since it now scales. Terrorblade now has even less HP with .50 less Strength gain per level. It hurts, but he still farms like a monster and carries harder than PL.

6.82 - Added to Captain's Mode. Sunder castpoint buffed. Meta becomes 'ban Terrorblade'.

6.82c - The expected (and probably deserved) nerf. Jungleblade is pretty much non-existant now with illusions taking so much more damage now. You're also slower in Metamorphosis, which pretty much only affects your laning. But srs Volvo stop nerfing my pets :(

6.83 - Reflection buffed, but this is outweighed by ALL illusions doing 25% less damage to towers.

6.84 - Reflection buffed again, but Terrorblade is still so far down the dumpster nobody cares. He's screwed against the meta heroes, and has so many glaring weaknesses he's barely worth picking unless you're a die-hard fan like me.

6.85 - DAYS OF GLORY ARE UPON US. Many, many changes, and flat buffs to basically everything. Perhaps he's finally good again.

6.86 - Added to Kappatain's Mode but otherwise unchanged. A niche, but viable pick, however he's extremely dominant in pubs if you're good at him.

6.87 - +3 base armour, giving him 10 at level 1, the highest in the game by 2. The general changes to Strength and HP pools were an indirect buff, as was the addition of that magic block item.
6.87c - Metamorphosis base attack time improved from 1.6 to 1.5. Conjure Image damage taken reduced from 425% to 400%.

6.88 - Conjure Image mana cost reduced to 70, and duration increased to 34. The duration is relatively minor, but the mana reduction alleviates your mana issues, allowing you to keep applying pressure. Terrorblade dominates the TI6 qualifiers, prompting nerfs to Metamorphosis persisting through Aegis and an increase to its mana cost in 6.88b.

7.00 - Talents added, illusions nerfed, somehow avoided nerfing Shadow Demon- Luna even though that was obviously the intent.

Subscrub

Many sikk plays on my channel. Like, favourite, subscrub 4 IceFraud.

Here's a replay cast. It's slightly out of date, so I might do another one.












Commending anyone who comments with 'song name'.