There's Blood in the Water
ArctiKMooN
January 3, 2013
Introduction
Morphling... A very versatile hero that serves the purposes of a hard carry, tank, nuker, pusher, and escape all in one. He can be played in the side lane with a support, in the mid lane, or even as a suicide laner using morph, and waveform as escape spells(Although this is not recommended as you will most likely get no farm). Morphling currently as of January 3rd, 2013 has one of the lowest winrates in DotA. Why? Is he underpowered? Not necessarily, he could use a small buff here and there, but more so is the fact that he is misplayed by many people. Once you understand all of Morphling's mechanics he is actually a very basic, and easy hero. Difficult to die with, and very powerful. Until you understand how to use his abilities to serve you well though, he can truly be a nightmare to play.
The purpose of this guide is not only to give you the necessary build to win as Morphling, but also to give you the necessary tools to understand how to play him as correctly as possible.
Skill Build
Why do I go the skill build I do? Well for starters, those rushing shotgun should max out adaptive strike earlier, but rushing Shotgun on morph now is... not worth it. Shotgun Morph in my opinion was never worth it, I always vouched for getting an Ethereal Blade on him though. Just later on in the game once you have the proper amount of agility.
So then I max out waveform, why? It does a ****ton of damage. It's pretty obvious to max out waveform first, it's one of the most powerful early game AOE nukes. It rapes single target as well, it's impossible to miss, and the range/cooldown/escape mechanism make it an all around amazing spell.
I max Morph second, why? With every level your mana cost per morph tick goes down GREATLY. Additionally you morph much, much faster. And hey that bonus agility doesn't hurt. Overall though the reasoning behind it is to NOT DIE. Your goal early game is to farm, farm, farm. As long as they don't have any crazy nuking you can morph a ton of agility, and keep your health around 500-600. Keep your treads on strength, and once morphing all into agility leaves you with more than 600 hp you should never have any more than 1 base strength unless you are running away/need the health.
Why do I level his ult at 10, and 11 instead of 6, and 11? Because simply the first level of his ult is just too short. You won't usually make much use of it, and so I'd rather max my morph first because overall it will help me more often. Once at level 2 and beyond though Morph's ult is great! I usually use it as such...
-If you are with the team, use your ult on a teamate and have the illusion walk back to base. Once a teamfight occurs you have a quick escape.
-If you want to go farm use the ult and have the illusion follow a teamate. If the enemies catch you farming you can tp to your team, or if your team gets caught you can help them in a fight.
-If you're feeling lucky you can try to bait out some spells by ulting a teamate and making it seem like the illusion is real.
I get adaptive strike last for the reason I stated above, it requires agility. I get more agility late game, and thus waveform/morph are more useful earlier on since they do not depend on any stats.
Items
: Probably the best all around boots for Morph. Tread switch for extra mana/health regen. Keep treads on strength, and morph all base strength to agility for damage. Morph needs stats, and these boots give him that.
: A great early item for Morph. Gives him plenty of stats, damage, and well needed mana regen. Allows him to push lanes more quickly if you toggle the ring on as well.
: Obviously only if you are going mid. Bottle is great on morph, he needs mana. He's great at getting runes with waveform as well. You'll always want this if you mid lane.
: Probably my favorite item for Morph. Plenty of stats, and morph than enough regeneration for Morph to never have health/mana problems ever again. Oh, and of course the passive that Linken's brings. Great against heroes like Doombringer/Nightstalker/Silencer who can deal long duration silences. Silences kill Morphling.
: Where would Morphling be without this item? He'd still be a great carry, but Ethereal Blade brings him to a whole new level. I'd say almost no matter what the situation this item is always worth it. The ability to instagib the enemies support, or bring another carry to half health in an instant is EXTREMELY useful. It's based of your primary attribute, and guess what, Morph has a ****ton of agility.
: Ah... Manta. Let's see.. illusions get damage from Morph's agility. Morph has a lot of agility. Morph doesn't like silences. Using Manta can remove silences.. HMMMM, yes this is a very good item on Morph.
: Butterfly, what more is there to say really? Any agility carry benefits from this. Just don't get it if you see an enemy building MKB.
: Easily a useful item on any hero in the entire game. If you are just unable to do anything in a teamfight, if you are getting nuked/disabled hard you should consider picking a BKB up.
: Combined with Skadi a Satanic is never a bad move. Gives you more survivability, via health, and lifesteal... massive lifesteal. Yes Lifesteal works with Skadi on ranged heroes. The modifiers only stack on ranged heroes. It's also nice to have a BKB with a satanic so when you use the active, and you have BKB up there is no way you can not gain a trillion health back.
: Stats.
: If you are raping enough to afford this, you'll probably not be dying anytime soon.
: Get it against evasion if you aren't willing to go shotgun.
Ring of Aquila
Ring of Health
Power Treads
Magic Wand
Perseverance
Linken's Sphere
Yasha
Manta Style
Ethereal Blade
Butterfly
Eye of Skadi
Wraith Band
Tango
Healing Salve
Bottle
Black King Bar
Satanic
Divine Rapier
Monkey King Bar
Veil of Discord
Orchid Malevolence
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